Doctor shares worrying effects alcohol has on brain as simulation shows terrifying reality
One of the main dangers of alcohol is the impact it has on your brain.
Drinking booze has a significant shift on the way your body works as it reacts to the poisonous substance you just ingested and the alcohol gets into your bloodstream.
The body has processes in place to deal with alcohol intake but there's only so much it can do, your liver can process about one unit of alcohol an hour and while it's working to filter through it all it's moving around your bloodstream and affecting other parts of your body.
Various organs throughout your body are affected by drinking alcohol but one of the main ones is your brain, that noodle inside your skull which governs your actions and what you do.
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You can understand why the alcohol impacting how your brain works could be incredibly dangerous.
What has the doctor said about it?
Speaking on the Diary of a CEO podcast, Dr Sarah Wakeman said drinking alcohol had lots of effects on the brain, and like pretty much any substance you could get addicted to it would release dopamine, which makes you feel good.
She described it as 'an anti-anxiety and a pain medication all in one', but before you go thinking it's in any way a good thing the doctor warned about it 'getting out of control'.
"There's so many health problems and even life problems related to alcohol that people may make different decisions for themselves if they had that awareness earlier on," she explained.
Even if there are short term good feelings from drinking, the damage it does over time is not in any way good for you.
How dangerous is alcohol for you?
Beyond the liver, the doctor said your brain was the 'top' part of your body that was going to be affected by drinking alcohol.
She compared two images of brains from people who were 43 years old, one of them an alcoholic, and explained that 'heavy alcohol use' meant there was 'less active healthy brain tissue'.
Dr Wakeman said that the brain of a 43-year-old alcoholic looked similar to the brain of a '90-year-old with dementia'.
She warned that periods of heavy drinking sometimes resulted in 'ethanol bathing your brain' and causing further damage, and she warned that people could get 'amnesia from heavy alcohol use'.
All in all, Dr Wakeman painted a very serious picture of the type of damage alcohol could do to your brain.
What does the simulation show?
The simulation from YouTube channel I Wonder Why? depicts the ethanol from drinking alcohol reaching your brain in five minutes where it attaches itself to GABA receptors and slows down your brain.
It shows the processes alcohol goes through to slow your brain down and make you feel relaxed, while also making you feel good by leading to the release of chemicals in your mind which are designed to do so.
This all makes for a potent and appealing cocktail, but one that is very much bad for your health.
Topics: Health, Alcohol, Mental Health
Joe Harker