Alcohol abuse can then worsen the symptoms of those conditions. When you drink alcohol, it’s absorbed through the small intestine, processed by the liver, and circulated through your major organs. As you get older, you have less muscle mass and your liver isn’t as strong. This leaves a larger amount of alcohol in your bloodstream. This causes the effects of alcohol to be stronger, even if you’re drinking the same amount you always have.
The biggest visible change that alcohol makes to the body is one that is actually indirectly made. When the liver gets damaged as a result of alcohol use, it can indirectly lead to skin damage. Other preexisting medical conditions also can get worse with drinking, including diabetes, high blood pressure, congestive heart failure and osteoporosis. Chronic alcohol use also can damage the brain and exacerbate the effects of certain diseases. Research has shown that excessive alcohol use can diminish white matter in the brain. White matter lies under the brain’s gray matter and is the network of nerve fibers that transmit information throughout the brain.
Why Alcohol Affects You More As You Age
Even if you’re not a heavy drinker, the toll that alcohol can take ages you. One night of heavy drinking can make your wrinkles more evident. While that consequence is temporary, if it continues, it could have lasting effects.
All in all, the sooner you quit or moderate your drinking, the better. It can occur when the liver can no longer filter out a yellow-orange substance in the blood, causing it to show up in the skin, according to WebMD. In darker-skinned people, it may be more noticeable in the whites of the eye.
Therefore, detox can be done at either a local medical facility, dedicated detox center, or treatment center that also offers detox services such as Grace Land Recovery. Attempting to self-detox can end up causing even more harm and can even be life-threatening. Typically your tolerance level to alcohol will go up the more you drink.
It also affects the healthy functioning of your digestive system, making it harder for you to absorb essential nutrients. This includes vitamins A, B, D, and E; minerals like calcium, magnesium, iron, and zinc; and even basics like proteins and carbohydrates. Alcohol’s all-around negative effect on nutrition means that heavy drinkers often become malnourished. This limits the body’s ability to maintain itself, resulting in faster aging. Older adults with mental health conditions such as depression, dementia, cognitive impairments, or anxiety are at a greater risk for developing problems with alcohol.
But at 38 years old, I couldn’t escape the consequences of drinking. At night, my mind dry eyes alcohol withdrawal raced with anxious thoughts and I never felt well-rested. The day after drinking, even just one glass of wine, I’d feel groggy, hungover and just sad. Back in my 20s, it would have taken four or five drinks to make me feel this way. Pounding water and electrolytes like I did when I was younger was no longer a fix. Drinking heavily and often can have a significant impact on your overall health.
Let’s also take a look at why, as you get older, drinking alcohol may affect you differently. There are just as many negative invisible body changes that can occur due to heavy drinking as there are visible body changes. Perhaps the biggest sign of aging that drinking age in russia you can’t physically see is the effect that drinking has on your brain. Studies have shown that alcohol can age the brain so much that young people who drink regularly have been found to share similar brain activity to those of elderly adults.
There’s evidence that alcohol affects your stress-response pathways, activating your fight-or-flight response and increasing your cortisol (your primary stress hormone) levels. A RAND corporation study found a 41% increase of heavy drinking (four or more drinks on one occasion) among women during the pandemic. It is never too late to get the help that you need for drinking.
Does alcohol darken skin?
After an episode of heavy drinking, your liver processes some of the alcohol you consumed. The rest of the alcohol will leave your body through your sweat and breath. Alcoholic drinks are high in calories and have no nutritional benefit to your body. Depriving yourself of adequate sleep can make you age faster.
Alcohol Disrupts Sleep
If you’re aging faster than you would otherwise, you’re also increasing your risk of age-related health problems. Dehydration can sap your skin of maverick sober living moisture and elasticity, leading to sagginess, dryness, and wrinkles. Moreover, the older you get, the more likely you are to be dehydrated. Even one night of heavy drinking can make your lines and wrinkles look more pronounced. If caught early enough, quitting drinking and other lifestyle changes can treat liver disease. Others fall in between, acquiring some undesirable physical traits due to the way alcohol affects all organs of the body.
Moderate drinking is defined as 14 or fewer drinks per week for men, and seven or fewer drinks per week for women. Older people often have concerns about falling, which is a common cause of injury in seniors. But younger people who drink alcohol are at a higher risk of injury from falls due to dizziness and confusion. Chronic alcohol use weakens bones and makes them more likely to break in a fall. It also increases your likelihood of developing osteoporosis.
Vidya Rao is a freelance writer and multimedia content creator with more than a decade of experience specializing in wellness, food and small business journalism. She’s passionate about amplifying underrepresented voices. The effect alcohol can have on breathing in older adults taking opioids is stark. In one small 2017 study, when participants were given 20 mg of oxycodone, the amount of air entering their lungs decreased by 28%.
- Because alcohol makes you more likely to do things that you might not otherwise do, consuming it can interfere with an otherwise healthy diet.
- Alcohol can cause your face to become temporarily red and flushed (3).
- Alcohol can diminish the effectiveness of medications, and medications can amplify the effect of alcohol on the body.
- For example, young people who drink regularly have been shown to perform poorly in tests of executive function.
That can be particularly hard on seniors, who are already more likely to wake up often or have a sleep disorder like insomnia. The older you get, the longer alcohol stays in your system. Drinking alcohol may make you more likely to develop certain skin conditions, such as psoriasis, rosacea, and seborrhoeic or nummular dermatitis. Almost every adult deals with arcus senilis by the time they’re 80. While this condition is generally harmless, it is a visible sign of aging. Research shows that people who drink heavily have a 33 percent greater chance of getting arcus senilis, a telltale gray ring around their corneas before they turn 60.
This is especially true when it comes to alcohol abuse and addiction. At Grace Land Recovery, we know the challenges that come with addiction. That’s why we make it our goal to successfully treat every person that walks in our doors with a variety of traditional and alternative treatment methods. You might not be able to fully reverse some of the effects of alcohol-related aging naturally. There are some things though that you can do to improve your overall health and well-being to counterbalance many of the effects of alcohol-related aging.