What are the hazards of alcohol? Be specific. 90% people drink alcohol, and 40%-50% male citizens have temporary alcohol problems; 10% of men and 3%-5% of women develop into a common and persistent alcohol problem (alcoholism).
Usually alcoholics have families and occupations, and only 5% patients are poor. Even a small amount of drinking will have a harmful interaction with other drugs; Temporary heavy drinking will also aggravate most internal diseases. Alcoholism can be wrongly manifested as many different symptoms and mental diseases. Similar substances found in wine are also harmful to the health of serious alcoholics, such as low molecular weight substances (such as butane and methanol), acetaldehyde, esters, histamine, phenol, tannic acid, iron, lead and cobalt. Ethanol is an inhibitor of the central nervous system, which can reduce the activity of neurons. 2% (low blood alcohol concentration) to about 10% (high blood alcohol concentration) ethanol is directly excreted through the lungs, urine and sweat, but most of it is metabolized by acetaldehyde in the liver. The above route eventually produces acetaldehyde. If a higher concentration of alcohol accumulates in the liver, brain or other tissues of the body, it will cause organ damage. Hypoemic cognitive impairment; Many people can induce anesthesia or sleep when their blood alcohol concentration is twice the legal toxicity; 300-400 milligrams of blood alcohol per deciliter can be fatal even if drugs are not taken at the same time.
Once cells adapt to chronic alcoholism, their structural and biochemical changes cannot return to normal for several weeks or longer. After adaptation, these cells need ethanol to play a better role, that is, physical addiction or drug dependence, which is different from psychological dependence. The vague definition of this concept means that if you don't take these drugs, you will feel uncomfortable psychologically.
Ethanol and carbohydrates in a glass of wine contain 292,880-465,438+08,400 joules of heat. Therefore, 8- 10 glass of wine produces more than 4 184 kilojoules of heat per day, but it lacks inorganic substances, protein and vitamins. The function of active absorption of vitamins by small intestine and storage of vitamins by liver in patients with alcoholism is defective. These vitamins include folic acid, pyridoxine (B6), thiamine (B 1), nicotinic acid or nicotine (B3) and vitamin A. Hypokalemia, magnesium, calcium, zinc and phosphorus can be caused by insufficient diet, excessive drinking or acid-base balance disorder after abstinence. Hypokalemia can lead to periodic paralysis and reflex disappearance; Low magnesium can lead to insensitivity and other nervous system syndromes; Low zinc is thought to lead to hypogonadism, anorexia, delayed wound healing and immune deficiency. Low blood phosphorus can lead to heart failure, brain dysfunction, muscle weakness (including breathing) and dysfunction of white blood cells and platelets. If you drink alcohol on an empty stomach, healthy people may have short-term hypoglycemia within 6-36 hours. (1) Central nervous system
In addition to acute behavioral effects, heavy drinking at night can also lead to alcoholic "amnesia", that is, forgetting all or part of the plot when drinking. Among them, 30%-40% people may have this symptom in their youth (that is, between the ages of eighteen and nineteen and early twenties). Long-term absorption of high-dose ethanol can lead to peripheral neuropathy in 5%- 15% alcoholics. The patient complained of numbness, tingling and paresthesia of limbs. Although these symptoms are more obvious at the distal end than at the proximal end, numbness or pain is often only mild or moderate damage, so the treatment goal should be abstinence and vitamin B 1.
About 1% alcoholics have cerebellar degeneration due to long-term malnutrition, which is a progressive posture, showing gait instability syndrome with mild nystagmus; After alcoholism, there may be serious cognitive problems and short-term and long-term memory damage from weeks to months, which may be subcortical damage and can last for a long time; More than 50% patients with chronic alcoholism can see that the volume of ventricles and sulcus increases. These changes are partially reversible and can return to normal within one year or more after abstinence. It may also be accompanied by alcoholic dementia. More than 20% patients with chronic mania may have had alcoholism before, and alcoholic dementia syndrome will never appear alone. More precisely, this term is used to refer to patients with obvious irreversible cognitive changes during chronic alcoholism.
Finally, to borrow an old idiom, alcohol can be described as a "great imitator". Because almost all psychiatric symptoms can be seen during or after heavy drinking, for example, severe emotional depression during drinking can be regarded as a problem caused by the "normal" function of alcohol; Severe anxiety after withdrawal often lasts for several months after withdrawal; The most serious symptom after abstinence ―― psychosis; There are no withdrawal symptoms at all, only auditory hallucinations or paranoid delusions, which are called "alcohol hallucinations or alcohol paranoia"; Another psychiatric syndrome related to alcohol is pathological poisoning, or specific body alcoholism. This is a serious state of excitement, chaos and violence can last for several minutes to several hours, which is common after drinking a very small amount of ethanol and cannot be recalled.