When Hazardous and Heavy Drinking Leads to Serious Health Problems

Written by man on July 31st, 2009 in Uncategorized.

For several years alcohol addiction research has revealed the fact that there is strong association between alcohol addiction and serious health conditions.

For example, in 2005, scientific examination demonstrated the fact that alcohol abuse and alcoholism cost the United States an estimated $220 billion per year. It can be emphasized that this huge alcohol-related cash disbursement was significantly more than the cost linked with cancer ($196 billion) or with obesity ($133 billion). While it is appropriate to stress these facts, it is also important to point to the fact that an interrelationship exists between all three of these health problems.

Stated another way, chronic alcohol abuse and alcohol dependency are also highly associated with obesity and with cancer.

Without a doubt, substance abuse exploration has demonstrated the fact that alcoholism can increase the risk for various kinds of cancer, particularly cancer of the colon, voice box (larynx), liver, rectum, throat, kidneys, and the esophagus. Heavy and recurring drinking can also lead to immune system problems and abnormality to the fetus during pregnancy.

Heavy Drinking Breaks Down the Person’s Organs and Systems

Furthermore, if alcohol addiction continues over a period of years, the person’s body organs will more likely than not be affected in a harmful manner. For example, chronic, abusive drinking is especially damaging to the liver due to the fact that the liver does most of the work of processing the alcohol that has been ingested. Unwarranted amounts of alcohol kills liver cells and obliterates the ability of liver cells to reproduce. This condition leads to a progressive inflammatory injury to the liver that can in the end lead to cirrhosis of the liver, a critical and potentially terminal medical problem.

Heavy, long-term drinking not only can result in acute liver damage, but it can also lead to damage to the heart and to the brain. Physical damage this serious may be irrepairable and may, in turn, result in severe disease or premature death.

The Significance of Alcohol Treatment

It is essential, therefore, to know how to recognize the various alcohol addiction symptoms and signs so that the alcoholic can be given the opportunity to get the professional alcohol therapy he or she needs.

Alcoholism and Sophisticated Brain Exploration

Fortuitously, medical research is constantly discovering novel and important information. Recent alcoholism exploration supplies a high-quality illustration. More precisely, for roughly the past ten years, complicated brain-imaging scanning devices have shown that continuous and chronic hazardous drinking transforms the functionality of the brain to a substantial extent, consequently resulting in brain disease that can last months, years, or conceivably as long as the person exists.

More accurately, medical investigation has revealed that individuals who have been drinking in an irresponsible manner for a substantial length of time increase their risk for developing permanent and substantial changes in the brain.

This type of damage may be directly related to severe liver disease, to the alcohol’s effects on the brain, or might be indirectly associated with the drinker’s poor overall health.

Hazardous Drinking, Malnutrition, and Mental Disorders

As a final example of different medical problems that are significantly correlated to alcohol dependency, consider that in accordance with scientific research, the excessive and repeated abuse of alcohol can lead to erosive gastritis, a medical condition that reduces the absorption of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients.

This kind of organ failure is correlated with malnutrition and to a number of critical mental and neurological disorders including sleep disturbances, memory loss, and psychosis such as Wernicke’s Encephalopathy and Korsakoff’s syndrome. This latter medical problem is a long-term incapacitating condition that is characterized by persistent memory and learning problems.

Conclusion

It is obvious that continued, abusive drinking is directly or indirectly related to many severe medical problems that can and do result in dangerous illness and premature death. Such information needs to be highlighted and presented to everyone in our society so that a massive amount of people will be able to refrain from irresponsible drinking while other people who have a drinking problem will get the professional treatment they require.

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