What will happen if you drink alcohol?
What will happen if you drink alcohol? Have you ever wondered how a drink we call alcohol can affect our bodies? How does this drink, which ends up in our stomach, instead makes us dizzy and drunk? Let's start with alcohol itself. The alcohol we consume is also known as ethanol. This compound is...small. Hmmm, smaller. A little bit more? Okay! Why is it that small? Because ethanol can pass through very tight gaps.
Even through one of the most important barriers in our body. Just imagine, these compounds diffuse into our bloodstream as fast as 20 minutes, even with a full stomach. However, what really makes us feel dizzy is the fact that alcohol compounds even diffuse into our brains. But how? Our brain is protected by a layer called the "blood-brain-barrier" whose function is to regulate the components in the blood that circulate into the brain. However, because ethanol is so small, it can easily diffuse through the "blood-brain-barrier" and bypass passing these defenses.
This is what can make us feel dizzy, nauseous, and other unpleasant feelings. Too much alcohol can exacerbate these effects and make us completely unaware of our surrounding environment. We can become overconfident, or vomit, or fall unconscious, or even fall into a coma, or even... ...die. Naturally, our liver is equipped with adequate support to destroy these alcohol compounds. However, it means asking our liver to work harder. More than it should. Too much alcohol can cause an enlargement of the liver called "alcoholic liver disease".
In prolonged cases, forcing our liver to work too hard can overwhelm it ...and cause death. We just can't live without our liver. Not only that, alcohol also interferes with the production of blood in the bone marrow and can cause anemia, a condition in which our bodies don't have enough red blood cells, leading to fatigue and even death in severe cases.
So, how much alcohol can we drink? The correct answer is… not at all. One study showed that just one day of alcohol consumption increased the chances of developing health problems by 0.5% compared to those who didn't drink.
So what do you think? Do these facts sound intimidating? Or not at all? Do you like discussing facts like these? Help your friends find out too by sharing this video so they don't rely on alcohol to drown their sorrows. Don't forget to subscribe to support our efforts to make education accessible. If there is a topic that you want us to discuss,