The Impact and the Dramatic Effects of Alcohol on the Human Body.

Essay Topic:

The impact and the dramatic effects of alcohol on the human body.

Essay Questions:

Why is alcohol considered to be a destructive substance?

How does social drinking influence the alcohol habits of the society?

What are the side effects of the alcohol abuse side effects?

What major physical changes occur in the human body of an alcoholic?

Thesis Statement:

The contemporary medical world is very much concerned with the female alcohol abuse phenomenon and the appearance of a group of inclinations that both female and male abusers experience.

Effects of alcohol on the human body

Table of contents:

1. Introduction

2. Alcohol abuse and possible outcomes

3. Changes in the human organism

a. Physical change

b. Mental changes

4. Conclusion

Introduction: Humanity has always yielded to the pressure of different chemical substances that eventually caused it irreparable damage. Finding the “cure” from the damage obtained was the next step. And it seems that only now, when the number of the diseases caused by different substances has reached its peak, people have finally understood that the best “cure” is the prevention of any forms of substance abuse. Alcohol is not the last one in the list of these destructive substances. It is the “companion” of any significant event occurring in the life of modern people or even an everyday way to relax and get away from all the difficulties. People relax and forget that they are supposed to think not only about their health but also about the health of the people around them. This especially concerns women, as they are the ones to deliver the next generation into the world. A woman’s organism is a lot more influenced by any external chemical influences and alcohol becoming woman’s frequent “companion” becomes a real threat for the health of the nation. The contemporary medical world is very much concerned with the female alcohol abuse phenomenon and the appearance of a group of inclinations that both female and male abusers experience. Alcohol abuse is the giant problem, which needs to be fixed desperately. It is very important to understand its nature and the possible effects that it can make to the human body.

2. Alcohol abuse and possible outcomes

The “disabilities” caused by alcohol last a lifetime and therefore completely change the life of any person and those people who will take care of him. Some people start being exposed to alcohol during their fetal development and therefore suffer throughout their whole lives sometimes not even having a small hope to find their places in the world and not being even “comparatively” independent. They cannot concentrate, talk too much and are not capable of making proper decisions. Such people are completely helpless and unprotected. The outcomes of alcohol abuse for the body are severe. Alcohol or sometimes called ethanol is a volatile liquid can easily burn oxidizes and is composed of oxygen, hydrogen and carbon, having the formula of C2H5OH. Alcohol influenced the whole human body, even including the central nervous system and the brain of a man. After the process of drinking alcohol people start feeling pleasure and more open to the outer world. Nevertheless, even though the person feels comfortable and more self-confident the most dangerous thing is often forgotten – alcohol’s side effects. If a person drinks large amounts of alcohol in a very small period of time it may result in the person’s brain being suppressed by the chemicals and lead to a fatality. If the amount of alcohol in a human body is exceeding a person can die in his sleep, because the body will not have enough resources to cope with the suppression. It is also extremely dangerous to combine alcohol with other chemical substances.

3. Changes in the human organism

The changes that occur in the human organism for the reason of alcohol abuse are terrible. The whole body is damaged and the person stops being able to either move and think properly. The effect of alcohol throughout the period of human’s life is immense and even the lesser amount of alcohol may cause some changes. These destructive processes, which occur inside the organism, cause irreparable damage that it made on the genetic level. Even “social drinking” causes changes in intellectual and behavior activity of children [2]. Heavy abuse, causing disorders has nowadays become unbelievably widespread. All this changes throughout the period the development of the alcohol dependency cause mental disabilities and severe changes in the human body.

3.a. Physical changes

Very often it is said that alcohol heavy drinkers look the same. This happens because in the first place all of them experience problems with their skin. As the vessels of the skin widen, the blood flow to the person’s face become more intensive. This is the reason people who drink alcohol have a flushed skin color and constantly feel that they are hot. Alcohol also often causes serious weight problem. As a fact, alcohol prevents people from consuming healthy food on a regular basis and it direct influences the heart of a drinker. This is one of the primary reasons why people who prefer to drink alcohol can experience a heart failure. Another part of the body that is directly damaged by alcohol is the liver. This is primarily due to the fact that it is liver that works the most to “clean” the organism from the chemicals in alcohol. When alcohol get to the blood of a person rather often, the blood in its turn damages the process of functioning of the liver cells and some of them start dying. The majority of people do not keep in mind the fact that even a one-time alcohol abuse makes the liver cells die, but it is the body of the person, who is not an alcohol heavy drinker, still has time to recuperate from the damage. In case the person drinks alcohol on a regular base the liver becomes weaker and weaker from day to day.

One other important physical sphere that is seriously damaged is the reproductive system of a human body. The reason of this type of dysfunction is that alcohol deprives the impulses that the nerves pass, and especially those that cause ability to erect, as for men. Women alcohol abuse it on of the first to be prevented as the fetus changes negatively and a lot of disabled children are born into to the world. Females metabolize alcohol very quickly and this is the primary cause of their necessity to abstain from alcohol. The fetus is already in high danger of obtaining FAS if the pregnant female consumes around 3 ounces of pure alcohol per day1[1]. Alcohol does not need to make much efforts to cross the placenta and therefore to enter the fetus’s organism. Alcohol may cause spasm of placenta vessels and the umbilical cord. This leads to the oxygen “starvation” of the fetus. As the amount of zinc in the cells is rapidly reduced their growth and development is damaged. Through these effects alcohol causes changes called “mutations” in the DNA of the fetus cells. In its turn, the mutation of DNA in the fetus cells leads to pathologies of the development of different organs and tissues [6].Alcohol also influences the person’s ability to perceive sounds and the direction they are coming out from. The taste and smell are lost and the speech becomes unclear. As alcohol constantly burns the throat of the drinker in may result in severe pain, vomiting and even cancer. The body itself starts being very weak, the muscles suffer from atrophy, pain and spasms.

3.b. Mental changes

If a person constantly abuses alcohol it will eventually lead to a set of permanent transformations in the brain morphology. One of the most significant transformations concerns the reduction of the total amount of brain tissue and the growing size of the ventricles. The basic reason the body stops being able to produce brain tissue to cope with the chemical is because it lacks natural vitamins that a healthy body produces. Another reason because the body is deprived of vitamins is that alcohol abusers often experience a problem of systematic eating and do not consume food at the required time, making the body weak and unable to resist the alcohol effects. As the brain of a person under alcohol dependency does not have enough vitamins it turns out to be the first step to the beginning of mental retardation. What happens to a person is that he completely losses the ability to control his behavior, his judgments become illogical and his ability to concentrate decreases tremendously. It is common fact that alcohol very often is a “companion” of crimes for the listed reason, as the inability to control the behavior results in extreme mood swings and emotional outbursts. Alcohol does not let the brain properly control the manifestations of the body, as the central nervous system becomes damaged through the depression of the nerve cells in the brain. The cells cannot respond to the impulses and a group of body function failures appear: anesthesia, respiratory failure, coma and death. As alcohol destroys the central nervous system the drinker experiences impaired visual abilities, loss of pain perception, slow reactions, impaired motor skills, altered perception of time and space and many others.

Conclusion: The consumption of alcohol beverages has strongly entered the tradition of celebration any significant events in the life of people. Anybody can hardly imagine celebrating Christmas or a birthday without a gulp of champagne. Seemingly, there is nothing bad in that and nothing bad can happen after a gulp of champagne or a gulp during a routine “social drinking”. But the reality is cruel… Therefore even small doses of alcohol can do harm to a the human body. Most people do not understand the consequences alcohol abuse can have of their health nevertheless the abuse occurs primarily because people do not know the destructive power of alcohol. The consequences of the alcohol abuse do not decrease with time, though specific manifestations change when doses of drinking become smaller. These factors prevent people from proper social adaptation and therefore make their life incomplete. Social impracticability of people suffering from the alcohol abuse is one of major problems of the contemporary medical society. And the only way to solve this problem is to prevent people from drinking alcohol in any amounts. There is no cure a better than alcohol abstention!

1 Women have lesser enzyme that known as alcohol dehydrogenate and that is the reason about 30% more alcohol is absorbed into their bloodstream than in men.