Effects of Alcohol on the Body

Glutamine Rebound

Many everyday people, especially athletes and bodybuilders are concerned about the affect alcohol use will have on their health. Will there be any serious consequences? What will it do the body?

After a night of alcohol consumption, a drinker will not fall into the deepest kind of sleep because the body is trying to recover from the depressing effect it has on the system. When someone is drinking, alcohol inhibits glutamine, one of the body’s natural stimulants. Once the person stops drinking, the body tries to make more glutamine then it needs in order to bring balance back to the body.

The higher level of glutamine stimulates the brain and stops the drinker from getting to sleep, once asleep the drinker can’t reach the deepest levels of sleep because of the increase in glutamine. This is the reason the next morning the onset of fatigue is felt with a hangover. Severe glutamine rebound during a hangover also may be responsible for tremors, anxiety, restlessness and increased blood pressure.

Although glutamine may increase the severity of a hangover, it actually is used in the body to speed up recovery by removing toxins from the body. This is why it is important and helps to insure the body’s normal daily function.

Congeners

Depending on the different alcohol you drink you may find different hangover symptoms. This is all due to the amount of congeners, byproducts of fermentation in certain types of alcohol. By combining different alcoholic drinks together you can actually change how serve your hangover may possible be.

The largest amounts of these toxins are found in red wine and dark liquors such as:

• bourbon

• brandy

• whiskey

• tequila

White wine and clear liquors such as:

• rum

• vodka

• and gin

These have fewer congeners and therefore cause less frequent and less severe hangovers. In one study, 33 percent of those who drank an amount of bourbon relative to their body weight reported severe hangover, compared to 3 percent of those who drank the same amount of vodka.

By combining different kinds of alcohol together you increase their potency and increase symptoms of a hangover. As well because beer is carbonated this speeds up the absorption of alcohol in the body making those drinkers feel more intoxicated and when combined with other forms of alcohol can give the body less time to recover, causing higher levels of toxins to be present, thus making hangover’s worse.