Alcohol consumption, drinking during pregnancy
Fatih Tarafından Health Kategorisine YazıldıAlcohol Consumption
The health risks for young women who drink are higher than they are for men. Many studies suggest that moderate alcohol consumption helps prevent heart disease - the leading cause of death among women. For women, risk of heart disease remains low until menopause. So, for premenopausal women, the protective value of a glass of wine is zero.
Alcohol is hign in calories. But moderate drinking is unlikely to have much of an effect on your weight. Conventinal diet wisdom says that if you drink, you tend to eat more. But the true effect of alcohol on weight is controversial. In one large scale study of female nurses, those who were moderate drinkers wighed less than women who abstained.
Within minutes of drinking the same amount of alcohol as a man, a woman’s blood alcohol level is much higher. But the difference is only partly due to a woman’s smaller size. Another key factor: Alcohol dehydrogenase, the enzyme that starts to metabolize alcohol in the stomach, is less active in young women than in men, so more alcohol goes directly into a women’s bloodstream,and it gets there more quikly. This not only means you gert drunker faster, it also means you’re more vulnerable to the negative health effects of alcohol, such as alcohol related liver damage.
Studies suggest that heavy drinkers face increased breast cancer risk and that moderate drinkers may have a small increase in risk. But the greater and more immediate risks of drinking are impaired judgment and its consequences unprotected sex, car accidents or of harming a fetus by drinking during pregnancy.
Alcohol interferes with the body’s ability to absorb floate, a B vitamin that is crucial in the prevention of neural tube defects. This is a serious birth defect that occurs in the earliest stages of fetal development, before you may even know you are pregnant.
Even moderate drinking can leave your body in a state of folate depletion. If you’re trying to become pregnant, it’s best to stop drinking entirely and start taking a multivitamin supplement that provides 100 % of the daily value for folic acid.
How much drinking is OK?
There is no one size fits all advice. For some people it is unwise to drink at atll. For example, if you’re pregnant or if alcohol-related problems run in your family. Otherwise, the leels belieed to pose little or no health risk are no more than one drink per day for women and no more than two drinks a day for men.
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