For most people, a small amount of alcohol does no harm and it is enjoyable. Alcohol is best when you don't overdo it. Drinking too much, or even drinking a little at the wrong time, can cause problems.
The most important thing you need to know is the amount of alcohol in your drink and how different drinks compare. The following drinks each contain roughly the same amount of alcohol. You can think of each as one unit.
One Unit =
° half pint ordinary beer or lager
° single measure spirits,
(e.g. scotch, gin) - 1fl/oz
° a standard glass wine
° a small glass sherry
° a measure vermouth or aperitif
This rough guide only applies to drinks bought in bars and pubs. Home measures tend to be more generous. Home brews could be much stronger. Extra-strength lager contains almost three times as much alcohol as ordinary lager!
More and more people are drinking low-alcohol and alcohol-free drinks - lagers, beers, ciders, wines, or mineral water or fruit juices.
If you need, or want to cut down your drinking, try changing to low-alcohol or alcohol-free drinks. One pint of strong lager contains 4 units of alcohol, while most pints of low-alcohol lagers have less than one unit.
It is important to keep to sensible limits if you want to avoid damaging your health. Young and old people are more at risk and should drink less:
Men - up to 7 units/week
Women - up to 4 units/week
It's advisable to spread the amount throughout the week, with two to three drink-free days, as your body needs time to recover from drinking alcohol.
Women are more at risk from harmful effects of alcohol since their bodies have more fat and less water content than men. Alcohol is more diluted in the extra body fluids found in a man's body.
Drinking alcohol when pregnant means you are feeding your baby alcohol. This is because when you drink, the alcohol passes into your bloodstream, through the placenta and is fed to your baby.
If you're pregnant, or planning a pregnancy, never drink heavily or frequently. If you limit yourself to an occasional drink - e.g. one unit, one to two times a week - the risk to your baby will be very small.
However, if you cut out alcohol completely, you cut out the risk completely. The same advice applies if you're breast-feeding, since alcohol can be passed to your baby through your breast milk.
Most alcohol is rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream. Nearly all alcohol has to be burnt up by the liver and the rest disposed of in sweat, urine or in the breath. On average, it takes 1 hour for the body to break down one unit of alcohol.
While in the bloodstream, alcohol affects people in different ways, depending upon individual body weight, size, height and sex. An empty stomach can also vary the effects.
Alcohol is a mood altering drug. It can make some people lively and talkative, others silent and miserable.
Alcohol is a depressant, in that it depresses certain brain functions. Therefore, it affects your judgement, self control and co-ordination.
Hangovers are caused by drinking too much alcohol. Dehydration is one of the problems. The alcohol tends to make water move out of body cells and this builds up in the blood. This is bad for the skin and leads to wrinkles and a puffy face.
Also each type of alcoholic drink contains natural substances which give it colour, smell and taste. These substances may add to a hangover.
Long Term Effects
The liver can only burn up one unit of alcohol in 1 hour. If it has to deal with too much alcohol over a number of years, it suffers damage. Heavy drinking can damage your sexual ability.
Too much alcohol can make it difficult to conceive a baby. Drink can also lead to careless sexual behaviour. Many family rows and breakdowns are caused by people drinking too much.
Alcohol also plays a part in unlawful behaviour. Many violent crimes are committed by people who have been drinking.
Heavy drinking can make you overweight. Alcohol has many calories (one pint of ordinary beer contains 180 calories!). Heavy drinkers will get their energy from alcohol instead of food, but most alcoholic drinks lack essential nutrients and vitamins.
Alcohol can cause:
° Stomach disorders, e.g. ulcers
° High blood pressure
° Brain damage
° Depression and other psychiatric problems
° Hepatitis
° Cirrhosis - permanent scarring of liver
° Cancer of mouth and throat
° More problems for people with diabetes
° Sexual difficulties
° Vitamin deficiency
° Muscle disease
Drinking And Driving
There are legal limits for drinking and driving. If you exceed these limits you can be prosecuted.
However, there is no sure way of telling how much you can drink before you reach this limit. It varies with each person. Your driving ability can be affected by just one or two drinks.
Even if you are below the legal limit, you can still be prosecuted if a police officer thinks your driving has been affected by alcohol. The only way to be sure you are safe is not to drink if you are going to drive.
CAFFEINE
Caffeine is a stimulant drug. It occurs naturally in coffee beans, tea leaves, cocoa beans and cola nuts, commonly used in soft drinks, notably cola.
If consumed in large quantities, or by particularly sensitive individuals, unpleasant side-effects can occur. These include agitation, tremors, insomnia, even irregular heart rhythm.
People who regularly consume large amounts of caffeine (e.g. 5+ cups of coffee/day) often find that their tolerance to the substance has increased. This requires an increased intake to obtain the same stimulant effect.
Possible withdrawal symptoms include tiredness, headaches and irritability. These may occur through going without caffeine for just a few hours.
There is sometimes a strong psychological dependence too. Because of its stimulant effect, caffeine can improve short-term athletic performance and, therefore, its use is banned in sporting competitions.
Caffeine is often included in various drug preparations, particularly in combination with certain painkillers.
CIGARETTE SMOKING
Cigarettes are plant leaves which have been dried and wrapped in special easy-burn paper. The leaves are ignited and allowed to smoulder.
The smoke and vapours that are given off are inhaled into the lungs of the user. It is now known that smoking is a major health hazard both to the smoker and to those around them.
Cigarettes contain numerous harmful substances. The dangers of three of them are particularly important:
° Nicotine: This is the substance that causes addiction to tobacco. It stimulates the body to produce adrenaline - this makes the heart beat faster and pushes up blood pressure.
° Tar: This produces chronic irritation of the respiratory system and is thought to be a major cause of lung cancer.
° Carbon Monoxide: A poisonous gas which cuts down the amount of oxygen the blood can carry to the heart and all other parts of the body.
Both nicotine and carbon monoxide may encourage thrombosis, or blood clotting. When you inhale cigarette smoke, the little hairs, cilia, in the air passages stop working.
Mucus carrying waste substances, tar and nicotine slips back into your lungs. Eventually the cilia stop working even when you are not smoking.
About 1:4 smokers die of diseases directly caused by smoking. Many others suffer years of pain and discomfort.
About 1,000 men and women in the U.K. die each week from diseases of the heart and circulation system caused by smoking.
The three main diseases related to smoking are:
1. Coronary heart disease
2. Lung cancer
3. Chronic bronchitis and emphysema
The nicotine raises blood pressure and makes the heart work harder. The heart needs oxygen to do that extra work, but the carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke cuts down the amount of oxygen getting to the heart.
With this extra strain on the heart, it is easy to understand how smoking doubles the risk of dying of a heart attack (see 'Reducing The Risk Of A Coronary' section in the 'Looking After Your Heart' supplement).
Young smokers are even more vulnerable, a man under 45, smoking 25+ cigarettes/day, increases the relative risk 10-15 times. The smoker's cough can put further strain on the heart.
Smoking cigarettes is the main cause of lung cancer. Of every 10 people who die of lung cancer, 9 are smokers. The more cigarettes smoked/day and the lower the age at which smoking started, the greater the risk of lung cancer.
Certain cells in the lungs which engulf bacteria, also absorb tar from cigarette smoke. Chemicals in the tar can start lung cells changing into cancer cells. The cancer cells multiply, destroy the lungs and spread around the body to start new cancers.
Symptoms:
° A cough - first and most common symptom
° Coughing up blood
° Shortness of breath
° Chest pain
° Wheezing
Less than 10% of lung cancer patients survive 5 years after the disease is diagnosed. The highest chance of cure is when the cancer is discovered and treated early. However, if the cancer has spread beyond the chest, a cure is highly unlikely.
Diseases often coexist to cause a persistent disruption of air flow into and out of the lungs. Chronic bronchitis is caused when tar and mucus damage the small air tubes and air sacs in the lungs. This leads to narrowing of these airways causing breathlessness. A persistent cough will also be present.
Smoking stimulates the production of mucus in the lining of the bronchi and thickens the bronchi muscular walls and those of the bronchioles. Often the person becomes increasingly short of breath and eventually may become housebound.
Emphysema is a disease in which the alveoli in the lungs become damaged, and lose their elasticity. They become unable to expand and contract.
The patient becomes breathless and in severe cases respiratory or heart failure may occur. There is also a risk for smokers of developing circulatory diseases which, at their worst, can lead to gangrene in the leg and leg amputation.
Smoking during pregnancy passes nicotine and carbon monoxide into the baby's bloodstream. Nicotine makes the baby's heart beat too fast.
Carbon monoxide means that less oxygen and nutrients reach the baby. A still birth is more likely and a higher risk of a premature or underweight baby.
Physical and mental development of children of mothers who smoke during pregnancy can be affected.
Breathing air which contains other people's smoke was thought to be no more than a nuisance, but recent research shows that it can cause lung cancer among non-smokers.
A burning cigarette gives off two types of smoke - mainstream and sidestream. The smoker breathes mainstream, the passive smoker breathes sidestream - the smoke that comes off the end of a lit cigarette.
Sidestream smoke is a mixture of irritating gases and tar particles that reach deeper into the lungs because they are small.
Many non-smokers find smoke causes unpleasant effects such as sore or runny eyes, sneezing, coughing, wheezing, hoarseness and headaches.
Non-smokers run a small risk of getting lung cancer. This risk is increased if they have lived or worked with smokers over many years.
There is even more risk of the non-smoker suffering a heart attack. A recent survey found non-smokers living with smokers have 30% higher risk of death from heart attacks.
Researchers found that passive smoking increases stickiness of platelets (tiny fragments in blood that aid clotting). Platelets can form clots in fat-clogged arteries, causing heart attacks.
Passive smoking is the third leading preventable cause of death (after smoking and alcohol). Children of smokers are more likely to suffer serious chest illnesses (e.g. pneumonia and bronchitis ) and are at more risk of developing heart problems.
Research by the Medical College of Virginia showed this risk to adolescent children of smokers. The children were passive smokers since birth.
They had increased amounts of cholesterol and lower levels of a protein in blood that is believed to protect against heart attacks.
Damage is done quickly and children may suffer health problems after only a few months' exposure to smoke. Statistics prove that your children are twice as likely to smoke, if you do.
The risks of smoking decrease dramatically on giving up. However, this may be difficult since nicotine is addictive. Withdrawal symptoms can be experienced, such as irritability and restlessness.
These should only last a few weeks, however, and will be well worth the effort. The person will feel and smell much fresher.
The efficiency of the lungs improves and the risk of developing heart diseases decreases. Generally, the person will feel much fitter. In younger smokers, the risk of heart attack can be halved within 5 years compared with those who continue smoking.
