Furthermore, alcohol can cause enlarged blood vessels, which gives our skin a redder appearance. Drinking heavily and often can have a significant impact on your overall health. It can also age you prematurely, making you look, feel, and act older than you actually are. More importantly, alcohol can age your body quicker than it should.
How Alcohol Affects Your Weight
In some cases, you may even notice that minor ailments due to alcohol consumption are now becoming more serious. Sometimes, families, friends, and health care workers may overlook the concerns about older people drinking. This can be the case because the side effects of drinking in older adults are mistaken for other conditions related to cocaine withdrawal aging, for example, a problem with balance. Alcohol can affect the way some vital organs work and make them age faster. While heavy drinkers are more likely to have cirrhosis (permanent damage to your liver), even moderate drinking can lead to problems like fatty liver disease. It also can make it harder for your kidneys to do their thing.
Alcohol Tolerance as You Age: What to Know as You Get Older
Moreover, heavy drinking can lead to liver damage, and a poorly functioning liver has a direct impact on your skin’s health and appearance. When a person suspects a problem with alcohol, it is essential to seek help. With assistance and support, it is possible to return to a sober life and to enjoy a more youthful appearance.
Can Alcohol Cause Weight Gain?
- For example, too much alcohol in the body may prevent the absorption of zinc, copper, and protein.
- For men, heavy drinking is defined as four drinks a day or more than 14 drinks a week.
- Usually, alcohol makes a person toss and turn during the night.
- She said she just celebrated her 600th day of not drinking.
In addition, drinks within the same beverage category, such as beer, can contain different percentages of alcohol. It’s important to read the label to understand and be aware of how much you’re actually drinking. In older adults, pcp addiction signs, treatment, and prevention especially, too much alcohol can lead to balance problems and falls, which can result in hip or arm fractures and other injuries. Older people have thinner bones than younger people, so their bones break more easily.
Does Alcohol Make You Age Faster?
If you’ve been wondering if drinking alcohol causes you to look older, we’ve got the answer. A combination of factors related to long-term substance abuse causes malnutrition and a sedentary lifestyle. You might not notice the effects right away, but your body keeps track at the cellular level.
The main blow falls on the cardiovascular system, so it is not surprising that it is heart disease that often leads to the death of people prone to alcoholism. Damage to the heart muscle leads to ischemia, hypertension, and significantly increases the likelihood of a heart attack. Getting too much sun leads to sunburn and dry skin – which can result in older-looking skin. Over time, exposure to UV light can damage the skin causing irreversible changes. Since alcohol depletes levels of vitamins, (especially vitamin A) the skin’s collagen levels plummet. As a result, a person’s skin may lose all elasticity and become wrinkled.
With time, this leads to loss of skin tone and a permanent red color. Also, a person may have heightened risks of developing skin infections. Even if you aren’t worried about the myriad of other ways alcohol can affect your health and well-being, the thought of premature aging alcohol withdrawal can be alarming. A drinking problem can elevate your risk of various health conditions you typically wouldn’t have to worry about until you are much older, from thinning skin to weight gain. As you age, the body’s mechanisms that protect you from free radicals diminish.
Over time, continual bloodshot eyes due to excessive alcohol use can lead to the depletion of nutrients. This can also lead to impaired eyesight and the need for glasses, contacts, or surgery to correct your vision. Katie has always enjoyed a glass of wine to unwind a few times per week.
My husband and I took our weekend wine-and-cheese tradition and made it an everyday event. We started skipping the cheese, and one glass would morph into two, and sometimes into a bottle. Understanding these “standard” drink sizes can make it easier to follow health guidelines. Another thing to keep in mind is that drinks may be stronger than you think they are if the actual serving sizes are larger than the standard sizes.