As the saying goes, "No wine is a banquet, and no wine is a gift". The Spring Festival is a day for family reunions, visiting relatives and friends, and it is inevitable that there will be wine and joy.
Many people who have already "Yangkang" even feel that it is not easy to "cross the calamity successfully", we must take a good hand and have a drink!
Today we will take a look at the truths about drinking and how to drink "healthy" during the Spring Festival.
Alcohol is a "Class 1 carcinogen" (identified carcinogen) recognized by the World Health Organization, which may cause various health problems such as liver and kidney damage, memory loss, dementia, high blood pressure, and osteoporosis. The health damage caused by a single drunkenness may last for at least six weeks [1].
A study involving tens of millions of people worldwide found that there is no "safety line" for drinking alcohol – as long as it is drunk, it will have adverse health effects, and there is no "which alcohol is healthier" [2].
Strategy 1: If you can not drink, you will not drink, even a drop, harmful and not beneficial.
Many people find that drinking mixed liquor (alternating several different types of alcohol) seems to be more likely to get drunk – and it is!
Drinking mixed alcohol, on the one hand, it is difficult to determine how much you have drunk, which is easy to cause excessive alcohol intake; On the other hand, mixed drinking of wine of different processes, concentrations and components may cause complex reactions, accelerate the absorption of alcohol in the body, and increase health hazards.
Strategy 2: If you must drink alcohol, try to drink only one.
Women should try to avoid alcohol during pregnancy, and the more they drink, the greater the risk of adverse birth outcomes (e.g., miscarriage, premature birth, stillbirth, etc.). Women who are trying to conceive may already be pregnant and do not know it, so when you start preparing for pregnancy, it is better not to touch alcohol.
If the lactating mother drinks alcohol, the alcohol will be fed to the baby through breast milk, causing harm to the baby; At the same time, it will reduce the amount of milk the baby eats, which is not conducive to the healthy growth of the baby.
Strategy 3: For the sake of children and themselves, (expectant) mothers must not drink.
Many people know: "cephalosporin with wine, just go" - drinking alcohol after eating cephalosporin antibiotics will occur "disulfiram-like reaction", resulting in myocardial infarction, shock and other serious consequences.
In fact, drugs such as metronidazole, ketoconazole, and furazolidone can also produce a "disulfiram-like reaction" when used simultaneously with alcohol. If commonly used drugs such as acetaminophen, ibuprofen, aspirin and various antihypertensive drugs, hypoglycemic drugs, sedative-hypnotic drugs and other commonly used drugs are taken at the same time as alcohol, they will increase the risk of adverse drug reactions and even be life-threatening. People taking drugs should refrain from drinking alcohol and should not take drugs immediately after drinking.
Strategy 4: I am taking medicine - a good reason to refuse to drink!
The main ingredients of those "decandy and hangover medicines" that are blown up are mostly some plant extracts (such as turmeric, goji berry, salvia, poria, etc.), or some vitamins and minerals, which may shorten the time of "dizziness", but also make you feel that you can "still drink" [3].
However, no matter what of the above ingredients, it has neither the effect of accelerating alcohol metabolism nor reducing the damage of alcohol to the body.
Strategy 5: If you are really drunk, it is better to drink more water, urinate frequently, and then sleep well.
As soon as you drink alcohol, you "blush" (blush), because the decomposition rate of acetaldehyde in the body cannot keep up with the decomposition rate of ethanol (alcohol), resulting in a large accumulation of acetaldehyde, a clear carcinogen, in the body, so long-term drinking may increase the chance of liver cancer [4].
So, when advising alcohol, please let go of those who are easy to "get on the face" ...
Strategy 6: Blushing as soon as you drink? Then really don't drink it!
Many adults like to let their children drink a little while drinking, or dip some wine with chopsticks for infants and toddlers to taste.
In fact, children's organs and nervous system are still developing, more sensitive to the toxicity of alcohol, drinking may cause children's intellectual development disorders, epilepsy, liver and kidney damage and other serious consequences, and even leave lifelong sequelae. In recent years, there have been many such news reports (death from respiratory failure in a 2-year-old boy due to excessive alcohol consumption [5]).
Strategy 7: Don't let your children drink! You can't taste it!
For many items, alcohol can be used for disinfection. However, drinking wine into the stomach will gradually metabolize into carbon dioxide and water, which does not play a role in preventing and killing bacteria and viruses.
Conversely, drinking alcohol also suppresses the immune system, weakens the barrier function of respiratory epithelial cells, and makes people more susceptible to infection [6].
Strategy 8: Just now "Yangkang" is weak, try not to drink.
The diuretic effect of caffeine in coffee will aggravate dehydration of the body and make drunkenness more uncomfortable [7]; Tea polyphenols in tea have antioxidant effects, but cannot accelerate alcohol metabolism; The fructose in honey can indeed reduce the concentration of alcohol in the blood [8], but it must be a large amount of pure honey, and the effect of honey water is minimal; Vinegar also does not participate in the process of alcohol metabolism.
Strategy 9: It's already very uncomfortable to get drunk, don't drink these useless things to toss yourself anymore!
Studies have shown that foods high in fat, carbs or protein can delay the emptying of the stomach, thereby delaying the absorption of alcohol [9], making it "harder" to get drunk. Before drinking, you can eat something to pad your stomach (including but not limited to rice, steamed buns, chicken, duck and fish, etc.).
You can also drink some yogurt, milk, juice, soup, etc., which can dilute the alcohol concentration in the stomach and accelerate the discharge of alcohol. In addition, it is not recommended to induce vomiting in any way after being drunk, which may damage the gastric mucosa and cause heavy bleeding, or cause poor breathing or even suffocation.
Strategy 10: Before drinking, eat and drink!
Finally, remember the "general principle of drinking during the Spring Festival" - do not drink.
If you really can't get drunk, then - drink less, don't get drunk.
May you all have a safe and healthy Spring Festival!
Reviewer: Teng Guangju
Deputy Chief Physician of the Department of Hepatology, Fifth Medical Center, General Hospital of the People's Liberation Army Chinese People's Liberation Army
bibliography
[1] Disturbing scans reveal how brain damage caused by alcohol carries on for up to SIX WEEKS after you stop drinking.4 April 2019
[2] GBD, 2016, Alcohol, et al. Alcohol use and burden for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016[J]. Lancet, 2018.
[3] TIAN Yingping, SHI Hanwen. Chinese Journal of Emergency Medicine,2014,23(2): 135-138.)
[4] Brooks P. J., Enoch M. A., Goldman D., Li T. K., Yokoyama A. The alcohol flushing response: an unrecognized risk factor for esophageal cancer from alcohol consumption. PLoS medicine, 6(3), e1000050.
[5]http://new.qq.com/cmsn/20151106/20151106009897
[6] Sarkar D, Jung MK, Wang HJ. Alcohol and the Immune System. Alcohol Res. 2015;37(2):153-155.
[7] CDC.https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/caffeine-and-alcohol.htm
[8] Berman P A M , Baumgarten I , Viljoen D L . Effect of oral fructose on ethanol elimination from the bloodstream[J]. South African Journal of Science, 2003, 99(1):47-50.
[9] Arthur I Cederbaum, ALCOHOL METABOLISM. Clin Liver Dis. 2012 Nov; 16(4): 667–685.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3484320/
*Produced by Tencent Medical Codex Content Team