After four weeks of Christmas parties and festivities, you might be starting to wonder what all that festive cheer is doing to your body.
Aside from the throbbing in your frontal lobe, excessive alcohol consumption can lead to a range of other symptoms, including in your gut.
According to gastroenterologist Vincent Ho, alcohol can interfere with the time it takes for food to go through our digestive system. But exactly how this affects our bodies depends on the alcohol’s concentration.
“In general, alcoholic beverages such as whisky and vodka with high alcohol concentrations (above 15%) slow down the movement of food in the stomach,” Ho said in an article for The Conversation.
By comparison, those with comparatively low alcohol concentrations, like beer and wine, can speed up this transit time. And this accelerated passage has been linked to diarrhea.
“Alcohol can also reduce the absorption of carbohydrates, proteins and fats in the first part of the small bowel [and] can lead to reduced absorption of xylose (a type of sugar),” Ho said. “This means diarrhea is more likely to occur in drinkers who also consume a lot of sugary foods such as sweets and sweetened juices.”
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Chronic alcohol consumption can also have the same effect, and potentially lead to inflammation and permanent changes in the composition of the gut microbiome. Excessive alcohol consumption has also been linked to an increased risk of stomach and colon cancer as well as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
But short-term bouts of heavy drinking may have very different effects. In a recent study into the effects of alcohol consumption among students at the University of Bristol in the U.K., researchers found that binge drinking is actually more likely to lead to constipation than diarrhea. This may be down to the higher concentrations of alcohol delaying transit through the small intestines, causing more water to be absorbed from the stool and creating harder, drier poop.
An exception here is patients with IBS, who often experience diarrhea, nausea and abdominal pain after binge drinking episodes.
“Some alcoholic beverages may affect your bowel motions more than others,” Ho said. “If you notice a pattern of troubling poos after drinking certain drinks, it may be sensible to cut back on those beverages.”
Caffeine is also known to stimulate contractions in the colon, so if you tend to get diarrhea after a night out, your might want to cut back on the coffee. Eating before drinking may also help slow down the absorption of alcohol and minimize its effects on the gut lining.
“Changes in bowel motions after drinking are usually short term and, for the most part, resolve themselves pretty efficiently,” Ho said. “But if symptoms such as diarrhea persist beyond a couple of days after stopping alcohol, it may signify other concerning issues such as an underlying gut disorder like inflammatory bowel disease.
“If problems persist or if there are alarming symptoms such as blood in your stool, seek medical advice from a general practitioner.”
Is there a health issue that’s worrying you? Do you have a question about drinking alcohol? Let us know via [email protected]. We can ask experts for advice, and your story could be featured on Newsweek.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.