The Urban Trainer Blog - UK

Alcohol is a potent antidepressant which affects the central nervous system. Drink it in moderation and you feel euphoric, little bit of lethargy and possibly confusion. As you continue you will spiral into stupor a coma and with excessiveness, death. You choose the state of mind you want to be in and let’s all hope it does not end up in the A & E. Of course not everyone is capable of making sound decisions after a few let alone abstain after your quota.

Alcohol is metabolized extremely quickly by the body. Unlike foods, which require time for digestion, alcohol needs no digestion and is quickly absorbed. Alcohol gets “VIP” treatment in the body – absorbing and metabolizing before most other nutrients. About 20 percent is absorbed directly across the walls of an empty stomach and can reach the brain within one minute.

Once alcohol reaches the stomach, it begins to break down with the alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme. This process reduces the amount of alcohol entering the blood by approximately 20%. (Women produce less of this enzyme, which may help to partially explain why women become more intoxicated on less alcohol than men.). In addition, about 10% of the alcohol is expelled in the breath and urine.

Alcohol is rapidly absorbed in the upper portion of the small intestine. The alcohol-laden blood then travels to the liver via the veins and capillaries of the digestive tract, which affects nearly every liver cell. The liver cells are the only cells in our body that can produce enough of the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase to oxidize alcohol at an appreciable rate.

Though alcohol affects every organ of the body, it’s most dramatic impact is upon the liver. The liver cells normally prefer fatty acids as fuel, and package excess fatty acids as triglycerides, which they then route to other tissues of the body. However, when alcohol is present, the liver cells are forced to first metabolize the alcohol, letting the fatty acids accumulate, sometimes in huge amounts. Alcohol metabolism permanently changes liver cell structure, which impairs the liver’s ability to metabolize fats. This explains why heavy drinkers tend to develop fatty livers.

There is a saying that when you consume alcohol and snack on chips and nuts, “Chips to your Hips, Nuts to your Guts”. The preferential treatment of your body to rid it of the alcohol is of higher priority compared to digesting your food.

Alcohol packs on a large amount of calories. 7 calories or 29.4 Joules to the gram. Full strength beer can contain up to 563KJ/135Cals. A Jim Beam can may contain up to 1255KJ/300Cals. To balance the beer you would need to do 20 minutes of cycling @ 15km/h and 30 minutes of jogging to burn off that Jim Beam.

With the amount of drinks you may consume in a session do you think you would be up for all that exercise to balance out the equation?