Alcohol Abuse
The more alcohol you drink the greater your risk of causing various kinds of damage to your body.
Many people who drink alcohol heavily are malnourished, either because they often substitute alcohol for food, eat poorly or because alcohol and its toxic by products prevent the body from properly absorbing and metabolizing nutrients, particularly protein, certain vitamins and fats. In both cases, the lack of nutrients contributes to liver cell damage.
Alcoholic hepatitis is another great threat with alcohol abuse, Mild forms of alcoholic hepatitis may not cause noticeable problems, but as the disease becomes more advanced and the liver more damaged, signs and symptoms are likely to develop. These may include yellowing of the skin and whites of the eyes, nausea and vomiting, mental confusion, and unexpected rapid weight gain.
One of the largest threats to the health of heavy alcohol drinkers is the damage that long-time drinking can do to their liver, in many cases this leads to cirrhosis, also known as alcohol liver disease.
Normal liver function is essential to life. The liver performs more than 300 life-saving functions, without which the body's systems will simply shut down. Alcoholic cirrhosis usually develops after more than a decade of heavy alcohol drinking, but for some it can develop more quickly. Even moderate drinkers can develop liver problems over time.
A functioning liver acts as a filter to remove toxins and waste products from the blood. It also stores nutrients such as certain vitamins, minerals, and iron, and plays a role in synthesizing and managing levels of certain chemicals and proteins in the body, such as cholesterol, hormones, and sugars.
Damage to the liver can not be reversed, meaning it will not be able to remove toxins from the blood; this causes them to accumulate in both the blood and eventually the brain. There, toxins eventually dull mental functioning can eventually cause personality changes, coma, and possibly death.
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