Which is safer for your health: drinking a lot on weekends or a little bit every day

Drinkers say that alcohol dilates blood vessels, and some doctors allegedly recommend an occasional drink or two. Opponents of alcohol argue that you should not drink at all, especially if you are at risk of cardiovascular disease. Who should we believe? And what’s actually safer for your health?

certified clinical geneticist, nutritionist, expert of the Academy of Physicians UniProf

The toxic threshold of alcohol is 150 ml of dry red wine or 60-70 ml of vodka daily. The more often alcohol is taken, the worse the consequences.

What is safer – to drink a lot but rarely, or a little but regularly

It all depends on how much and what exactly you pour into your glass. For example, for the “prevention” of blood clots, 50 ml of quality red wine is enough – that is, just a few sips. But rarely does anyone stop at this amount.

The ancient Greek healer Hippocrates tried using wine to treat various diseases. In the old days in France, it was also very common.

• wines from Chateauneuf-du-Pape were prescribed for stomach bloating;
• from the Côte de Provence for obesity;
• from Bergerac for high cholesterol;
• baths of fragrant Muscat de Frontignan for herpes;
• wines from St. Amour for sexual problems;
• Beaune Eau Gazeuse (diluted with carbonated water) – for cirrhosis.

But despite the milestones of history, from the point of view of modern medicine, daily consumption of even such a seemingly innocuous beverage as wine is not safe for health.

Nevertheless, wine does have beneficial properties. Read more about them in the article.

What happens to the body if you drink alcohol regularly

Diseases of the gastrointestinal tract

If alcohol is ingested every day, it can harm the bacteria in the stomach that are responsible for normal digestion. Having a high acidity index, alcoholic beverages can cause damage to the walls of the stomach and intestines.

Circulatory disturbance

In excessive amounts, ethanol increases blood pressure, thickens the blood, disrupts blood circulation in the cerebral and coronary vessels. Alcohol provokes the development of heart attack, stroke, hypertensive crisis. With prolonged use, irreversible heart and brain diseases develop – alcoholic cardiomyopathy, encephalopathy.

Systematic intake of alcohol for several years leads to the appearance of pain in the heart area. This can cause an increase in blood pressure and the development of hypertension, atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease. All these consequences appear even when drinking 0.5 liters of beer several times a week.

Liver problems and heart dysfunction

Excessive or systemic alcohol, being in aqueous medium, dissolves fats, causes clumping of red blood cells and capillary blockage, leads to increased deposition of fat in the liver and heart in the periods between intakes of alcohol.

Alcohol is a risk factor for the development of hypertension: already from 60 ml per day there is an increase in blood pressure in direct relation to the amount drunk – the more often alcohol is taken, the worse the consequences.

Alcohol becomes extremely dangerous with the simultaneous intake of blood thinning anticoagulants and even vitamin C. The fact is that if the liver is loaded with alcohol, it has no time to break down the drug, which means that the level of the drug in the blood rises, which can lead to the risk of bleeding.

So to drink or not to drink, that is the question

Alcohol in small amounts thin the blood, reduces the risk of deep vein clots. But the main thing here is moderate consumption, and this is a very fine line.

On average, it takes three days for the body to clear itself of the breakdown products of ethanol. Therefore, rare “constipation” (no, not every weekend, but sometimes!) will be safer than daily alcohol consumption. Since the risks of dosage violations with daily use are very high. Occasional and infrequent is safer than a little bit every day, especially if that “little bit” exceeds acceptable toxic levels.

There is no safe dose of alcohol because the human body is not designed for any amount of alcohol.