Expert shares ‘bad news’ for those who consume 2-3 alcoholic drinks a night
Topics: Alcohol
Rachael Davis
Featured Image Credit: Dragon Claws/Getty Images
Topics: Alcohol
A health coach has issued a warning to people who drink two or three alcoholic drinks each night.
With Dry January long behind us, many part-time teetotallers will have gone back to their usual drinking habits.
Regular drinking, even in relatively small amounts, poses several risks to our health. Along with the short-term impacts of a hangover, alcohol also puts stress on your liver, cardiovascular system, and brain function. It increases your risk of developing diabetes, and it can have a negative impact on immune function too.
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On top of all that, alcohol interferes with sleep, even in small amounts. Alcohol is particularly damaging to REM phases, the sleep stages where we dream, process memories, and regulate stress hormones.
James Swanwick, the aforementioned health and wellness coach, cited a 2022 study from the University of Pennsylvania covering 36,000 people whilst warning against drinking each night.
The study confirmed alcohol’s impacts on the size and structure of participants’ brains, with heavy drinkers’ grey matter starting to resemble those of people with cognitive impairments.
Even light drinkers should take note, as small to moderate amounts can also reduce the size of our brains.
The more you drink the more pronounced the effects, but even just one drink a night can gradually build up to significant consequences over time.
Remi Daviet, a co-author of the study, said that alcohol’s effects are compounded with each drink you have in a single session, too.
The NHS’s official guidelines state that we should drink no more than 14 units of alcohol per week, with those being spread over three or more days.
That’s the equivalent of drinking one relatively weak pint per night although, as already mentioned, even just one pint can have a negative impact on the quality of your sleep.
The University of Pennsylvania’s study found that one drink per day can 'cause a level of brain degeneration'.