Why does alcohol intoxication occur? Physiology of intoxication. Scheme of the effect of alcohol on the human cell
Subjectively, alcohol intoxication- this is a feeling of euphoria, permissiveness and impunity, characteristic of a person whose blood has got ethyl alcohol. Objectively, these are certain chemical reactions that lead to blockage of blood vessels and, as a result, oxygen starvation of the brain. Find out what "laboratory experiments" on your own health lead to in the following article. The simple scientific facts speak for themselves...
“The drunk does not need a knife, you pour him a little bit - and do with him what you want!” Have you heard this? Alcohol has an unparalleled impact on the human body. Everywhere and everywhere they say that drinking is harmful. This is already a hackneyed statement that does not make any impression on us. And if you try to ask what exactly is harmful alcohol, most will not be able to give an exhaustive answer.
In our society, the law of moderate drinking flourishes, and it is even believed that in small doses alcohol useful. There has been a lot of medical research done on this subject to support this theory. Perhaps this is so. But that's not what we're talking about. And about the physiology, or rather, the physiological processes that occur in our body after consumption alcohol. I promise, it will not be boring, I will try to state it as clearly as possible for any reader.
Red blood cells (erythrocytes) carry oxygen throughout the body. Outside, they are covered with a lipid membrane, which does not allow them to stick together. The alcohol that enters the blood degreases the surface of red blood cells, leading to their sticking together and the formation of clots that increase like a snowball.
Naturally, these clots cannot first pass through thin capillaries, but with an increase in the number of adherent erythrocytes, even through larger blood vessels. Moreover, the more alcohol is drunk, the larger these clots reach. Sooner or later, such clots get stuck in the vessels, completely paralyzing the blood flow. The tissues begin to lack oxygen. And under the influence alcohol this process occurs in the tissues of all organs.
First of all, the brain suffers when the blood supply to certain groups of its neurons stops. Then oxygen starvation sets in, leading to the death of individual, albeit very small, sections of the brain. This state of hypoxia is perceived as a harmless state of intoxication.
At a certain stage of oxygen starvation, a state of euphoria, high spirits occurs. If the dose taken alcohol increases, then as a result of strong intoxication, a person falls asleep. But that's what we think. From a physiological point of view, alcoholic coma, i.e. loss of consciousness due to neurochemical disturbances caused by alcoholic brain hypoxia.
The awake body needs more oxygen, so when it is lacking, the body turns on such a protective reaction to reduce the intensity of metabolism. As a result of blockage of blood vessels in the cerebral cortex, irreversible death of neurons and microstrokes occur, leading to memory impairment.
Because first of all, the brain cells responsible for memory die. I think everyone knows how as a result of heavy drinking people can not remember anything after they sober up. And what happens in the body after that? And the next day, a hangover syndrome sets in ... While a person comes to his senses, a general cleaning is going on in the body at that time.
It gets rid of dead cells in the cerebral cortex, increasing the flow of fluid into the disaster area and thereby creating increased pressure there. It is literally brainwashing. Here is the explanation for the headache and the feeling of thirst: after all, the body needs a lot of fluid to eliminate the consequences of yesterday.
Dead cells are excreted in the urine. You can even say that a person urinates with his brains, or rather with what he turned them into the day before. Do you want to know what happens in the stomach? Consider this on the example of an experiment conducted by American scientists. Gastroscopic examination was performed in 19 participants with healthy stomachs.
Each subject swallowed a miniature device such as an iconoscope, from which an image of the walls of the stomach was transmitted to the TV screen. Everyone was given to drink on an empty stomach 200 grams of whiskey without soda. Within a few minutes, the mucous membrane was swollen and reddened, after an hour bleeding ulcers appeared on it, after a few hours strips of pus stretched along the mucous membrane.
The picture was the same for all subjects. This is a clear example of the impact alcohol on empty stomach. It’s even scary to imagine what happens to ulcers, who often continue to drink alcohol, despite the prohibitions of doctors. Thus, doses safe for the body alcohol basically does not exist. First of all, intelligence suffers significantly.
What is intoxication? Many people have asked this question over and over again. What exactly happens in our body when we are in this state? After taking alcohol, a slight or severe intoxication occurs, a person may feel drowsy.
For some people, memory may be disturbed for a while, there is a strong thirst.
Perhaps the most common question is this one: why does a drunk feel a sense of fun, some kind of euphoria? The answer is quite simple.
As a result of intoxication, any organ in our body can be affected. Alcohol has a detrimental effect on all functions and systems. Alcoholic beverages have a very negative effect on brain cells. Scientists have found that a certain amount of alcohol accumulates in the brain. A person can drink a dose of alcohol: as a result of chemical reactions, alcohol is separated and absorbed into the blood, as you know, the bloodstream goes to the brain. The end result is a significant destruction of the cerebral cortex.
What is actually called intoxication? The process is quite simple: oxygen stops entering the brain cells, as a result of which a person begins to suffer from oxygen starvation. He thinks he's just drunk, when in fact some of his brain cells are dead.
Thus, the death of cells is perceived by the intoxicated as a kind of separation from the outside world. Intoxication is primarily the destruction of brain cells. In order to prevent this process, it is important to give up alcohol.
Why does a person experience euphoria?
In the process of destroying part of the cells, a person cannot perceive any negative information. You can often see an alcoholic who feels boundless freedom from problems and hardships. In this case, he has intoxication and the disease of hypoxia, which occurs as a result of too frequent use of alcoholic beverages and intoxication itself.
A drinking person does not feel joy, but only its illusion. Many decide to get rid of pressing problems, drink a glass of wine, vodka and feel complete euphoria. Few of these people are aware that they are destroying their own brains. If a person drinks alcohol for a long time and is intoxicated, you may notice that his nose becomes reddened.
The brain has a huge number of neurons - cells that are responsible for nervous activity, each of them interacts with a microcapillary. Microcapillaries can become clogged as a result of the fact that a person often experiences alcohol intoxication. When this happens, the neuron dies within 10 minutes. It is important to remember that these cells cannot be restored.
If a person thinks that he drinks just a little and that intoxication will not harm the body, he is deeply mistaken. Even after a slight and, at first glance, moderate intoxication, a certain number of cells die in the brain. This fact proves the autopsy. The brain of a moderately drinking person can be compared with. During the examination, microscopic scars, sores are observed, the organ itself looks wrinkled. As a result of intoxication, certain areas of the cerebral cortex are affected.
Consequences of drinking alcohol
In order to protect yourself from the occurrence of this problem, it is recommended not to drink alcohol at all. It may happen that at a young age a person takes alcohol in moderate doses, and there are no consequences. However, it should be noted that the consequences of regular intoxication may appear at a more mature age. When the body is young, it is able to produce a considerable number of capillaries. When drinking alcohol, their supply decreases.
If you drink alcohol in moderate or even small quantities, then there are stomach ulcers, disorders of the nervous system, problems with sexual functions. These ailments can show up by the age of 30. Alcohol and light intoxication are harmful in any case. Some men are very fond of vodka, they tend to believe that 100 g will give them cheerfulness and a good mood. But experts have a completely different opinion: it was found that as a result of taking 100 g of any alcohol, intoxication occurs and about 8,000 cells die in the human brain as a result of this abuse.
Intoxication actually carries a very strong threat. Often there is a phenomenon when a person loses memory as a result of alcohol intake. This is quite understandable: those cells that are responsible for mental activity die: the more alcohol, the more cells are destroyed. An alcoholic has a mental disorder.
Long-term memory also deteriorates, and its recovery is very difficult. As a result of intoxication, a person's brain is destroyed, this also applies to moderate drinkers. Some scientists argue that the concept of "moderate drinker" simply does not exist. At autopsy, the brains of an alcoholic and a moderate drinker are almost indistinguishable from each other. As a result of intoxication, too many cells are destroyed. Alcohol, in a way, can be compared to a weapon that kills us. In order to preserve memory and a healthy mind, it is important to completely abandon the use of alcohol.
The main reasons for drinking alcohol
The desire for intoxication and the use of alcohol are often associated with some causes. The first of them is the thirst for positive emotions and incredible pleasure. Alcohol can bring joy and temporary pleasure into our lives. The second purpose of drinking is to alleviate existing psychological disorders: a person drinks in order to eliminate a stressful state, overcome self-doubt, in other words, to escape from problems for a while.
In some situations, the use of alcohol and further intoxication occurs as a result of weak character. For example, if someone in the company drinks, the non-drinker simply wants to please his comrades, not to attract undue attention to himself. Sometimes a man may drink alcohol because he thinks that it will bring him a charge of vivacity, energy and positive. This opinion is very erroneous: intoxication as a result of energy drinks creates an effect of imaginary benefits. Alcohol is also consumed according to tradition, this is primarily associated with the celebration of a celebration.
Intoxication: a safe dose of alcohol
The question of a harmless dose of alcohol has always been controversial. People often fail to find a suitable answer: how much alcohol is harmless? Experts tend to believe that alcohol in any amount is harmful, respectively, the safe dose is zero. Drinkers live less than non-drinkers. Intoxication is especially dangerous for women. As a result of this process, it becomes impossible to breastfeed the baby.
If you drink alcohol very often, a woman will look much older. In men, there is a violation of sexual functions. At 40, a drinking person can turn into an old man. If you drink alcohol during pregnancy, it is likely that the child will be born handicapped, in some cases, childbirth cannot take place, a miscarriage occurs.
If a woman drinks alcohol during pregnancy, even if she is slightly intoxicated, the development of the baby will deteriorate significantly. There is a possibility of deformity, the risk increases as alcohol is consumed. The health of the child directly depends on the conditions of its formation in the womb, as well as on all the features of the course of pregnancy.
In order for a child to be born healthy, it is important to stop drinking alcohol and completely eliminate intoxication. If a pregnant mother drinks alcohol, the fetus may have serious problems: there is a risk of deformity. The higher the degree of alcohol exposure, the greater the likelihood of defective birth. When the fetus begins its development inside the mother's womb, and at that time she drinks alcohol, the child's organs develop poorly, digestive disorders occur, mental disorders, and the cardiovascular system is affected. In frequent cases, mental retardation occurs.
All people without exception are subject to intoxication, it is important to remember this. Thus, the state of intoxication is a very dangerous state that does not pass without a trace. In order to avoid pathological changes in the brain and the body as a whole, it is important to completely abandon the use of alcohol.
Thanks for the feedback
Comments
Megan92 () 2 weeks ago
Has anyone managed to save her husband from alcoholism? Mine drinks without drying up, I don’t know what to do ((I thought of getting a divorce, but I don’t want to leave the child without a father, and I feel sorry for my husband, he’s a great person when he doesn’t drink
Daria () 2 weeks ago
I have already tried so many things and only after reading this article, I managed to wean my husband from alcohol, now he doesn’t drink at all, even on holidays.
Megan92 () 13 days ago
Daria () 12 days ago
Megan92, so I wrote in my first comment) I will duplicate it just in case - link to article.
Sonya 10 days ago
Isn't this a divorce? Why sell online?
Yulek26 (Tver) 10 days ago
Sonya, what country do you live in? They sell on the Internet, because shops and pharmacies set their markup brutal. In addition, payment is only after receipt, that is, they first looked, checked and only then paid. And now everything is sold on the Internet - from clothes to TVs and furniture.
Editorial response 10 days ago
Sonya, hello. This drug for the treatment of alcohol dependence is indeed not sold through the pharmacy chain and retail stores in order to avoid overpricing. Currently, you can only order official website. Be healthy!
Sonya 10 days ago
Sorry, I didn't notice at first the information about the cash on delivery. Then everything is in order for sure, if the payment is upon receipt.
Margo (Ulyanovsk) 8 days ago
Has anyone tried folk methods to get rid of alcoholism? My father drinks, I can not influence him in any way ((
Andrey () A week ago
I haven’t tried any folk remedies, my father-in-law both drank and drinks
What is intoxication? Why does a drunk person want to sleep? Why is it so common to have memory loss the next morning? Why are you thirsty in the morning? Why is drunken conception unacceptable? Why are drunkards called "blues" or "bruises"? Why do those who have taken alcohol have redness of the nose, ears, neck? Why do people who drink alcohol get fun, euphoria?
Reference: Intoxication (ICD-10 F10.0 - F17.0, ICD-9 305) is a special state of the nervous system due to the intake of alcohol or drugs. At the initial stage, intoxication is sometimes manifested by an unreasonably joyful, high spirits (euphoria).
The mechanism of action of alcohol
There is not a single organ in the human body that would not be destroyed by alcohol. But the strongest changes and in the very first place occur in the human brain. It is there that this poison tends to accumulate. After taking a mug of beer, a glass of wine, 100 grams of vodka, the alcohol contained in them is absorbed into the bloodstream, goes to the brain with the bloodstream, and the process of intensive destruction of the cerebral cortex begins in a person.
The destruction mechanism is very simple. In 1961, the three American physicists Nicely, Muskaui and Pennington examined the human eye through a long-focus microscope they had made. They focused through the pupil on the smallest vessels of the retina of the eye, gave illumination from the side, and for the first time in the history of science, physicists managed to look inside a human vessel and see how blood flows through the vessel.
What did physicists see? They saw the walls of the vessel, they saw leukocytes (white blood cells) and erythrocytes (red blood cells that carry oxygen from the lungs to the tissues, and carbon dioxide in the opposite direction). Blood flowed through the vessels, everything was filmed.
One day, physicists put another client at the microscope, looked him in the eye and gasped. In a person, blood clots were walking through the vessel: clots, gluing of red blood cells. Moreover, in these gluings, they counted 5, 10, 40, 400, up to 1000 pieces of erythrocytes. They figuratively called them grapes. The physicists were frightened, but the man is sitting and it seems nothing. The second third is normal, and the fourth has blood clots again. They began to find out and found out: these two had been drinking the day before.
Immediately, physicists performed a barbaric experiment. A sober man, in whom everything was normal in the vessels, was given a mug of beer to drink. After 15 minutes, alcoholic gluing of red blood cells appeared in the blood of a former sober person.
Physicists decided that they had made the greatest scientific discovery - they directly proved that alcohol coagulates blood (it is a thrombogenic agent) in human vessels, and not just in a test tube, as was known from experience. This experience, which was previously shown at school in the 9th grade in biology lessons, is as follows. Water is poured into a test tube and a few drops of blood are dripped into it. Against the background of the lamp, the water turns bright orange. Immediately, a few drops of vodka are dripped into this test tube and right before our eyes the blood coagulates in flakes. So, as it turned out, not only in a test tube, but also in vessels, alcohol coagulates blood.
Just in case, physicists turned to the medical encyclopedia and discovered with amazement that medicine has been diagnosing alcohol for 300 years as a narcotic neurotropic and protoplasmic poison, that is, a poison that affects both the nervous system and all human organs; a poison that destroys their structure at the cellular and molecular levels.
As you know, alcohol is a good solvent. As a solvent, it is widely used in industry in the manufacture of varnishes, varnishes, in a number of chemical industries for the synthesis of paints, synthetic rubber, and others. It dissolves everything: grease, dirt, and paint... Therefore, alcohol is used in technology to degrease surfaces. But once in the blood, alcohol behaves like a solvent there!
What happens when alcohol passes through the stomach and intestines into the bloodstream?
In the normal state, the outer surface of erythrocytes is covered, as it were, with a thin layer of lubricant, which, when rubbed against the walls of blood vessels, is electrified. Each of the erythrocytes carries a unipolar negative charge, and therefore they have the original property to repel each other. Alcohol-containing liquid removes this protective layer and relieves electrical stress. As a result, red blood cells, instead of repelling, begin to stick together.
At the same time, red blood cells acquire a new property: they begin to stick together with each other, forming larger balls. The process goes on in the mode of snowballs, the size of which increases with the amount of alcohol consumed. The diameter of capillaries in certain parts of the body (brain, retina) is sometimes so small that red blood cells literally "squeeze" through them one by one, often pushing the walls of the capillaries apart. The smallest diameter of a capillary is 50 times thinner than a human hair, equal to 8 microns (0.008 mm), the smallest diameter of an erythrocyte is 7 microns (0.007 mm).
Therefore, it is clear that a formation containing several erythrocytes is not able to move through the capillaries. Moving along the branching arteries, and then along the arterioles of ever smaller caliber, it eventually reaches the arteriole, which has a diameter smaller than the diameter of the clot, and blocks it, completely stopping the blood flow in it, therefore, the blood supply to individual groups of brain neurons stops. Clots are irregular in shape and contain an average of 200-500 erythrocytes, their average size is 60 microns. There are separate clots containing thousands of red blood cells. Of course, thrombi of this size overlap the arterioles of not the smallest caliber.
Due to the fact that oxygen stops flowing to the brain cells, hypoxia begins, that is, oxygen starvation (oxygen deficiency). It is hypoxia that is perceived by a person as an allegedly harmless state of intoxication. And this leads to “numbness”, and then the death of parts of the brain. All this is subjectively perceived by those who drink alcohol as "freedom" from the outside world.
In fact, just a part of the brain is artificially turned off from the perception of often "unpleasant" information from the outside.
It is hypoxia that is an imitator of freedom, the feeling of which arises in the psyche of people who drink under the influence of alcohol. It is for this feeling of freedom that everyone who drinks is drawn. But the feeling of freedom is not freedom, but the most dangerous illusion of the drinker. Having thus decided to “free” himself from those around him and from problems, the drunk continues to be surrounded by people and circumstances, ceasing to be aware of his actions and thoughts.
Note that the "sleep" that occurs as a result of strong intoxication is not sleep in the usual physiological sense. This is precisely the loss of consciousness due to neurochemical disorders caused by alcoholic hypoxia of the brain - an alcoholic coma. In other words, during oxygen starvation, a waking organism cannot breathe, and in order to facilitate breathing (so that a person does not die), a protective reaction of the organism occurs - “sleep”, in order to reduce the metabolic rate in it.
For large vessels (in the arm, in the leg), the gluing of erythrocytes in the initial stages of alcohol consumption is not particularly dangerous. Unless people who have been drinking alcohol for many years have a characteristic complexion and nose. A person in the nose has a lot of small vessels that branch. When an alcoholic gluing of erythrocytes approaches the branching site of the vessel, it clogs it, the vessel swells (aneurysm), dies, and the nose subsequently acquires a blue-violet color because the vessel no longer works.
In the mind of all, the situation is exactly the same. The human brain is made up of 15 billion nerve cells (neurons). Each nerve cell (neuron, denoted by a triangle with a dot) ultimately feeds its own microcapillary with blood. This microcapillary is so thin that erythrocytes can only squeeze into one row for normal nutrition of a given neuron.
But when the alcoholic gluing of erythrocytes approaches the base of the microcapillary, it clogs it, 7-9 minutes pass and the next brain cell of a human neuron irrevocably and forever dies.
After each so-called "moderate" drink, a new graveyard of dead nerve cells of neurons appears in a person's head. And when pathologists open the skull of any so-called moderately drinking person, they all see the same picture - a wrinkled brain, a smaller brain and the entire surface of the cerebral cortex in microscars, microulcers, lunges of structures. These are all areas of the brain destroyed by alcohol.
The insidiousness of alcohol is further enhanced by the fact that the body of a young person has a significant, approximately 10-fold supply of capillaries. That is, only about 10% of all capillaries function at any given moment. Therefore, alcoholic disorders of the circulatory system and their consequences are not as obvious in youth as in later years.
However, over time, the “reserve” of capillaries is gradually exhausted, and the consequences of alcohol poisoning become more and more noticeable. With the current level of alcohol consumption, the “average” in this respect, a man “suddenly” encounters a wide variety of ailments at the age of about 30 years. Most often - these are diseases of the stomach, liver, cardiovascular system. Neurosis, disorders in the sexual sphere. However, diseases can be the most unexpected: after all, the effect of alcohol is universal, it affects all organs and systems of the human body. Some scientists believe that after 100 grams of vodka, at least 8 thousand actively working cells die forever, mainly germ cells and brain cells.
The irreversible death of neurons as a result of thrombosis and microstrokes in the cerebral cortex leads to the loss of part of the information and to short-term memory impairments (FIRST OF ALL, THE BRAIN CELLS responsible for memory DIE, so those who “slightly” sorted out the next morning do not remember anything). At the same time, the processes of processing current information are hampered, which lead to the fixation of its most significant part in neural structures that provide long-term memory.
When doctors autopsy alcoholics who died from alcohol poisoning, they are surprised not at how the brain is destroyed, but at how a person could continue to live with such a brain.
Thus, alcohol is, as it were, an invisible, but very powerful weapon aimed at depriving a person of reason. And if a whole nation drinks, as our people were driven into this abyss of drunkenness, then this means depriving the mind of the entire nation and turning people from people who are intelligent, creative, thinking, forward-minded - into just a two-legged working herd.
Studies show that the primary pathological craving for alcohol is not associated with either intoxication or a hangover and CORRESPONSES TO MENTAL DEPENDENCE on alcohol. There are six types of motivations for drinking alcohol.
Hedonistic - drinking alcohol is associated with a thirst for pleasure. The reasoning boils down to the following: “Why should I refuse to drink myself, because there is only one life, there will not be another one. And in general, why live if there is no pleasure.
Ataractic - alcohol is used to alleviate affective disorders, relieve the state of emotional stress, anxiety, anxiety, and uncertainty. "Doctor, I needed to switch off the bad memories."
Submissive - alcohol consumption is associated with lack of will and increased subordination, inability to resist the environment. “I drink like everyone else, I don’t want to be a black sheep.”
With hyperactivation of behavior - alcohol is used as a dope in order to raise the tone, increase activity and improve performance. "I drink when I'm tired to cheer up."
Pseudocultural - alcohol is consumed in order to attract the attention of others with a complex cocktail recipe, rare brands of wines. Such patients consider themselves "thin connoisseurs of alcohol."
Traditional - alcohol is consumed on authorized and unauthorized holidays.
How much can you drink for a holiday, so as not to harm your body? Is there a so-called scientifically based safe dose of alcohol?
- A scientifically objectively justified safe dose of alcohol for a Russian person is zero.
There is no safe dose of externally administered alcohol for us.
Alcohol and offspring
The average life expectancy of female alcoholics is 10% less, and that of male alcoholics is 15% less than that of non-drinkers. But these are only external signs of harm from alcohol.
In women, one of the characteristic consequences of alcoholism is the inability to breastfeed children. According to experts, this defect occurs in 30-40% of women who regularly consume alcohol. Alcoholic beverages also have a significant impact on reproductive function. First, alcoholism leads to early aging. A woman who drinks in her 30s tends to look older, and an alcoholic by the age of 40 turns into an old woman.
The negative effect of wine on offspring has been known since antiquity. Long before our days, it was noted that people who drink are more likely to have stillborn babies and miscarriages. If the child was born alive, then often he lags behind in development and grows mentally handicapped.
It is no coincidence that the laws of ancient Greece and Rome forbade young people to drink alcohol. It was forbidden for a drunken husband to approach his wife. A law was passed banning newlyweds from drinking wine.
In Rus', it has also long been considered a bad sign to drink wine at your own wedding. The connection between the health of children and the condition of parents has been noted in other countries.
What is the mechanism of influence of wine on fetal development?
The health of newborns depends on the conditions for the formation of the germ cells of the parents, intrauterine development, the course of childbirth, and, finally, the conditions of the postpartum period. At all these stages, the contact of the fetus and newborn with alcohol is dangerous for its physical and mental consequences, and the risk of deformity and disease is the higher, the greater the degree of alcohol impact on a living organism. Specific forms of damage are also determined by the stage at which alcohol intoxication occurs.
It was found that the effect of alcohol at the stage of intrauterine development leads to underdevelopment of the fetus or its individual organs (malformation), increased mortality of newborns.
Alcohol that enters the child's body with mother's milk causes nervous disorders (including mental disorders, mental retardation), diseases of the digestive system (mainly the liver), cardiovascular system, etc.
Many cases of alcohol poisoning of infants are described due to the fact that their mothers drank wine and beer. Why are they doing this? In most cases, mothers of affected children answered this question: to have more milk. Such "stimulation" of milk production ended very badly: the children had convulsive seizures, and sometimes even real epileptic seizures developed.
At the end of the last century, the French doctor Demme, studying the offspring of families of alcoholics, found that almost 50% of their children died in early childhood, and of the remaining 10% suffered from epilepsy and dropsy of the head, 12% grew up idiots and only 10% were healthy.
A woman drinking... That in itself is a disaster. No wonder the people say: "The husband drinks - half the house is on fire, the wife drinks - the whole house is on fire." But how does a mother feel knowing that her child was born handicapped through her fault?
“My mother suffers for the rest of her life.
So, one woman (not at all a hopeless alcoholic) had a child with a severe mental disorder. Doctors found out the reason: throughout the pregnancy, the expectant mother drank cocktails that contained alcohol. Just a few grams of alcohol dissolved in a tonic - and severe mental disorders in a baby who will be doomed for the rest of his life!
A woman should not drink a single gram of alcohol. There should be no exceptions! This is the law! A woman preparing to become a mother cannot but know that at the beginning of her development the fetus does not yet have independent blood circulation and that when taking any doses of alcohol, its concentration in the blood of the mother and fetus is the same.
Heredity of alcoholism
Statistical and genetic studies have shown that alcoholism itself is not genetically transmitted, only a tendency to it, arising from the characteristics of the character received from parents, is transmitted. And to be an alcoholic or not to be a person - this question is decided by a specific life situation, i.e. environmental conditions. In the development of drunkenness in children of alcoholics, a decisive role is played by bad examples of parents, the situation of drunkenness at home, in the family. As soon as an authoritative family member, say a grandfather, convincingly condemns an alcoholic son, the chances that the grandson will be a teetotaler immediately rise.
There is not a single organ in the human body that would not be destroyed by alcohol. But the strongest changes and in the very first place occur in the human brain. It is there that this poison tends to accumulate. After taking a mug of beer, a glass of wine, 100 grams of vodka, the alcohol contained in them is absorbed into the bloodstream, goes to the brain with the bloodstream, and the process of intensive destruction of the cerebral cortex begins in a person. The destruction mechanism is very simple.
In 1961, the three American physicists Nicely, Muskaui and Pennington examined the human eye through a long-focus microscope they had made. They focused through the pupil on the smallest vessels of the retina of the eye, gave illumination from the side, and for the first time in the history of science, physicists managed to look inside a human vessel and see how blood flows through the vessel. What did physicists see?
They saw the walls of the vessel, they saw leukocytes (white blood cells) and erythrocytes (red blood cells that carry oxygen from the lungs to the tissues, and carbon dioxide in the opposite direction) 8 Blood flowed through the vessels, everything was filmed. One day, physicists put another client at the microscope, looked him in the eye and gasped. In a person, blood clots were walking through the vessel: clots, gluing of red blood cells. Moreover, in these gluings, they counted 5, 10, 40, 400, up to 1000 pieces of erythrocytes. They figuratively called them grapes.
The physicists were frightened, but the man is sitting and it seems nothing. The second third is normal, and the fourth has blood clots again. They began to find out and found out: these two had been drinking the day before. Immediately, physicists performed a barbaric experiment. A sober man, in whom everything was normal in the vessels, was given a mug of beer to drink. After 15 minutes, alcoholic gluing of red blood cells appeared in the blood of a former sober person. Physicists decided that they had made the greatest scientific discovery - they directly proved that alcohol coagulates blood (it is a thrombogenic agent) in human vessels, and not just in a test tube, as was known from experience. This experience, which was previously shown at school in the 9th grade in biology lessons, is as follows. Water is poured into a test tube and a few drops of blood are dripped into it. Against the background of the lamp, the water turns bright orange. Immediately, a few drops of vodka are dripped into this test tube and right before our eyes the blood coagulates in flakes.
So, as it turned out, not only in a test tube, but also in vessels, alcohol coagulates blood. Just in case, physicists turned to the medical encyclopedia and discovered with amazement that medicine has been diagnosing alcohol for 300 years as a narcotic neurotropic and protoplasmic poison, that is, a poison that affects both the nervous system and all human organs; a poison that destroys their structure at the cellular and molecular levels. As you know, alcohol is a good solvent. As a solvent, it is widely used in industry in the manufacture of varnishes, varnishes, in a number of chemical industries for the synthesis of paints, synthetic rubber, and others. It dissolves everything: grease, dirt, and paint ... Therefore, alcohol is used in technology to degrease the surface.
But once in the blood, alcohol behaves like a solvent there! What happens when alcohol (always containing alcohol) passes through the stomach and intestines into the bloodstream? What happens to the brain from vodka? In the normal state, the outer surface of erythrocytes is covered, as it were, with a thin layer of lubricant, which, when rubbed against the walls of blood vessels, is electrified. Each of the erythrocytes carries a unipolar negative charge, and therefore they have the original property to repel each other. Alcohol-containing liquid removes this protective layer and relieves electrical stress.
As a result, red blood cells, instead of repelling, begin to stick together. At the same time, red blood cells acquire a new property: they begin to stick together with each other, forming larger balls. The process goes on in the mode of snowballs, the size of which increases with the amount of alcohol consumed. The diameter of capillaries in certain parts of the body (brain, retina) is sometimes so small that red blood cells literally "squeeze" through them one by one, often pushing the walls of the capillaries apart.
The smallest diameter of a capillary is 50 times thinner than a human hair, equal to 8 microns (0.008 mm), the smallest diameter of an erythrocyte is 7 microns (0.007 mm). Therefore, it is clear that a formation containing several erythrocytes is not able to move through the capillaries. Moving along the branching arteries, and then along the arterioles of ever smaller caliber, it eventually reaches the arteriole, which has a diameter smaller than the diameter of the clot, and blocks it, completely stopping the blood flow in it, therefore, the blood supply to individual groups of brain neurons stops.
Clots are irregular in shape and contain an average of 200-500 red blood cells, their average size is 60 microns. There are separate clots containing thousands of red blood cells. Of course, thrombi of this size overlap the arterioles of not the smallest caliber. Due to the fact that oxygen stops flowing to the brain cells, hypoxia begins, that is, oxygen starvation (oxygen deficiency). It is hypoxia that is perceived by a person as an allegedly harmless state of intoxication.
And this leads to “numbness”, and then the death of parts of the brain. All this is subjectively perceived by those who have drunk alcohol as "freedom" from the outside world, similar to the euphoria of being released from prison after a long "time in prison". In fact, just a part of the brain is artificially turned off from the perception of often "unpleasant" information from the outside. It is hypoxia that is an imitator of freedom, the feeling of which arises in the psyche of people who drink under the influence of alcohol. It is for this feeling of freedom that everyone who drinks is drawn. But the feeling of freedom is not freedom, but the most dangerous illusion of the drinker.
Having thus decided to “free” himself from those around him and from problems, the drunk continues to be surrounded by people and circumstances, ceasing to be aware of his actions and thoughts. Note that the "sleep" that occurs as a result of strong intoxication is not sleep in the usual physiological sense. This is precisely the loss of consciousness due to neurochemical disorders caused by alcoholic hypoxia of the brain - an alcoholic coma.
In other words, during oxygen starvation, a waking organism cannot breathe, and in order to facilitate breathing (so that a person does not die), a protective reaction of the organism occurs - “sleep”, in order to reduce the metabolic rate in it. For large vessels (in the arm, in the leg), the gluing of erythrocytes in the initial stages of alcohol consumption is not particularly dangerous. Unless people who have been drinking alcohol for many years have a characteristic complexion and nose. A person in the nose has a lot of small vessels that branch. When an alcoholic gluing of erythrocytes approaches the branching site of the vessel, it clogs it, the vessel swells (aneurysm 10), dies, and the nose subsequently acquires a blue-violet color because the vessel no longer works.
In the mind of all, the situation is exactly the same. The human brain is made up of 15 billion nerve cells (neurons). Each nerve cell (neuron, denoted by a triangle with a dot) ultimately feeds its own microcapillary with blood. This microcapillary is so thin that erythrocytes can only squeeze into one row for normal nutrition of a given neuron. But when the alcoholic gluing of erythrocytes approaches the base of the microcapillary, it clogs it, 7-9 minutes pass and the next brain cell of a human neuron irrevocably and forever dies.
Blockage of the microcapillary by gluing red blood cells After each so-called "moderate" drink, a new graveyard of dead nerve cells of neurons appears in the head of a person. And when doctors - pathologists open the skull of any so-called moderately drunk person, they all see the same picture - a wrinkled brain, a brain smaller in volume and the entire surface of the cerebral cortex in microscars, microulcers, lunges of structures. These are all areas of the brain destroyed by alcohol. The insidiousness of alcohol is further enhanced by the fact that the body of a young person has a significant, approximately 10-fold supply of capillaries. That is, only about 10% of all capillaries function at any given moment.
Therefore, alcoholic disorders of the circulatory system and their consequences are not as obvious in youth as in later years. However, over time, the “reserve” of capillaries is gradually exhausted, and the consequences of alcohol poisoning become more and more noticeable. With the current level of alcohol consumption, the “average” in this respect, a man “suddenly” encounters a wide variety of ailments at the age of about 30 years. Most often - these are diseases of the stomach, liver, cardiovascular system. Neurosis, disorders in the sexual sphere. However, diseases can be the most unexpected: after all, the effect of alcohol is universal, it affects all organs and systems of the human body.
Some scientists believe that after 100 grams of vodka, at least 8 thousand actively working cells die forever, mainly germ cells and brain cells. The irreversible death of neurons as a result of thrombosis and microstrokes in the cerebral cortex leads to the loss of part of the information and to short-term memory impairments (FIRST OF ALL, THE BRAIN CELLS responsible for memory DIE, so those who “slightly” sorted out the next morning do not remember anything).
At the same time, the processes of processing current information are hampered, which lead to the fixation of its most significant part in neural structures that provide long-term memory. When doctors autopsy alcoholics who died from alcohol poisoning, they are surprised not at how the brain is destroyed, but at how a person could continue to live with such a brain. Thus, alcohol is, as it were, an invisible, but very powerful weapon aimed at depriving a person of reason. And if a whole nation drinks, as our people were driven into this abyss of drunkenness, then this means depriving the mind of the entire nation and turning people from people who are intelligent, creative, thinking, forward-minded - into just a two-legged working herd.
How does intoxication happen? Mechanism, chemistry of alcohol intoxication. Intoxication - what is it? Why is the memory disabled. Hangover and redness of the nose. Alcohol as much as you can: What you can drink. The harm of drinking alcohol and the brain cell."Mentally" sat,
They drank a lot of wine.
The next morning sobered up -
No brain half!
What is intoxication? Why does a drunk person want to sleep? Why is it so common to have memory loss the next morning? Why are you thirsty in the morning? Why is drunken conception unacceptable? Why are drunkards called "blues" or "bruises"? Why do people who drink alcohol have redness of the nose, ears, neck? Why do people who drink alcohol get fun, euphoria?
The mechanism of action of alcohol
Erythrocytes in the blood during intoxication. Formation of blood clots.
There is not a single organ in the human body that would not be destroyed by alcohol. But the strongest changes and in the very first place occur in the human brain. It is there that this poison tends to accumulate. After taking a mug of beer, a glass of wine, 100 grams of vodka, the alcohol contained in them is absorbed into the bloodstream, goes to the brain with the bloodstream, and the process of intensive destruction of the cerebral cortex begins in a person.
The destruction mechanism is very simple. In 1961, the three American physicists Nicely, Muskaui and Pennington examined the human eye through a long-focus microscope they had made. They focused through the pupil on the smallest vessels of the retina of the eye, from the side they also gave backlight to physicists for the first time in the history of science, it was possible to look inside a human vessel and see how blood flows through the vessel.
What did physicists see? They saw the walls of the vessel, they saw leukocytes (white blood cells) and erythrocytes (red blood cells that carry oxygen from the lungs to the tissues, and carbon dioxide in the opposite direction) 8
Blood flowed through the vessels, everything was filmed. One day, physicists put another client at the microscope, looked him in the eye and gasped. A person had blood clots walking through the vessel: clots, agglutination of erythrocytes. Moreover, in these gluings, they counted 5, 10, 40, 400, up to 1000 pieces of erythrocytes. They figuratively named them bunches of grapes. The physicists were frightened, but the man is sitting and it seems nothing. The second third is normal, and the fourth has blood clots again. They began to find out and found out: these two had been drinking the day before.
Immediately, physicists performed a barbaric experiment. We experimented with how much alcohol you can. A sober man, in whom everything was normal in the vessels, was given a mug of beer to drink. After 15 minutes, alcoholic gluing of red blood cells appeared in the blood of a former sober person.
Physicists decided that they had made the greatest scientific discovery - they directly proved that alcohol coagulates blood (it is a thrombogenic agent) in human vessels, and not just in a test tube, as was known from experience. What can you drink. Harm of drinking alcohol and 1 cell This experience, which was previously shown at school in the 9th grade in biology lessons, is as follows. Water is poured into a test tube and a few drops of blood are dripped into it. Against the background of the lamp, the water turns bright orange. Immediately, a few drops of vodka are dripped into this test tube and right before our eyes the blood coagulates in flakes. So, as it turned out, not only in vitro, but also alcohol coagulates blood in blood vessels.
Just in case, physicists turned to the medical encyclopedia, to find out how much alcohol can you drink and discovered with amazement that medicine has been diagnosing alcohol for 300 years as a narcotic neurotropic and protoplasmic poison, that is a poison that affects both the nervous system and all human organs; a poison that destroys their structure at the cellular and molecular levels.
As you know, alcohol is a good solvent. As a solvent, it is widely used in industry in the manufacture of varnishes, varnishes, in a number of chemical industries for the synthesis of paints, synthetic rubber, and others. It dissolves everything: grease, dirt, and paint ... Therefore, alcohol is used in technology to degrease the surface. But once in the blood, alcohol behaves like a solvent there!
What happens when alcohol (always containing alcohol) passes through the stomach and intestines into the bloodstream?
What happens to the brain from vodka?
Harm of drinking alcohol. In the normal state, the outer surface of erythrocytes is covered, as it were, with a thin layer of lubricant, which, when rubbed against the walls of blood vessels, is electrified. Each of the erythrocytes carries a unipolar negative charge, and therefore they have the original property to repel each other. Alcohol-containing liquid removes this protective layer and relieves electrical stress. As a result, red blood cells, instead of repelling, begin to stick together.
At the same time, red blood cells acquire a new property: they begin to stick together with each other, forming larger balls. The process goes on in the mode of snowballs, the size of which increases with the amount of alcohol consumed. The diameter of capillaries in certain parts of the body (brain, retina) is sometimes so small that red blood cells literally "squeeze" through them one by one, often pushing the walls of the capillaries apart. The smallest diameter of a capillary is 50 times thinner than a human hair, equal to 8 microns (0.008 mm), the smallest diameter of an erythrocyte is 7 microns (0.007 mm). Therefore, it is clear that a formation containing several erythrocytes is not able to move through the capillaries. Moving along the branching arteries, and then along the arterioles of ever smaller caliber, it eventually reaches the arteriole, which has a diameter smaller than the diameter of the clot, and blocks it, completely stopping the blood flow in it, therefore, the blood supply to individual groups of brain neurons stops. Clots are irregular in shape and contain an average of 200-500 red blood cells, their average size is 60 microns. There are separate clots containing thousands of red blood cells. Of course, thrombi of this size overlap the arterioles of not the smallest caliber.Due to the fact that oxygen stops flowing to the brain cells, hypoxia, that is, oxygen starvation (oxygen deficiency). It is hypoxia that is perceived by a person as an allegedly harmless state of intoxication. And this leads to “numbness”, and then the death of parts of the brain. All this is subjectively perceived by those who have drunk alcohol as "freedom" from the outside world, similar to the euphoria of being released from prison after a long "time in prison". In fact, just a part of the brain is artificially turned off from the perception of often "unpleasant" information from the outside.
It is hypoxia that is an imitator of freedom, the feeling of which arises in the psyche of people who drink under the influence of alcohol. It is for this feeling of freedom that everyone who drinks is drawn. But the feeling of freedom is not freedom, but the most dangerous illusion of the drinker. Having thus decided to “free” himself from those around him and from problems, the drunk continues to be surrounded by people and circumstances, ceasing to be aware of his actions and thoughts.
Note that the "sleep" that occurs as a result of strong intoxication is not sleep in the usual physiological sense. This is precisely the loss of consciousness due to neurochemical disorders caused by alcoholic hypoxia of the brain - an alcoholic coma. In other words, during oxygen starvation, a waking organism cannot breathe, and in order to facilitate breathing (so that a person does not die), a protective reaction of the organism occurs - “sleep”, in order to reduce the metabolic rate in it.
For large vessels (in the arm, in the leg), the gluing of erythrocytes in the initial stages of alcohol consumption is not particularly dangerous. Unless people who have been drinking alcohol for many years have a characteristic complexion and nose. A person in the nose has a lot of small vessels that branch. When an alcoholic gluing of erythrocytes approaches the branching site of the vessel, it clogs it, the vessel swells (aneurysm), dies, and the nose subsequently acquires a blue-violet color because the vessel no longer works.
Blockage of the vessel by agglutination of erythrocytes
In the mind of all, the situation is exactly the same. The human brain is made up of 15 billion nerve cells (neurons). Each nerve cell (neuron, denoted by a triangle with a dot) ultimately feeds its own microcapillary with blood. This microcapillary is so thin that for normal nutrition of a given neuron, erythrocytes can only squeeze into one row.
But when the alcoholic gluing of erythrocytes approaches the base of the microcapillary, it clogs it, 7 - 9 minutes pass and the next brain cell of a human neuron irretrievably and forever dies.
Blockage of the microcapillary by erythrocyte agglutination
After each so-called "moderate" drink, a new graveyard of dead nerve cells of neurons appears in a person's head. And when doctors - pathologists open the skull of any so-called moderately drunk person, they all see the same picture - a wrinkled brain, a brain smaller in volume and the entire surface of the cerebral cortex in microscars, microulcers, lunges of structures. These are all areas of the brain destroyed by alcohol.
The insidiousness of alcohol is further enhanced by the fact that the body of a young person has a significant, approximately 10-fold supply of capillaries. That is, only about 10% of all capillaries function at any given moment. Therefore, alcoholic disorders of the circulatory system and their consequences are not as obvious in youth as in later years.
However, over time, the “reserve” of capillaries is gradually exhausted, and the consequences of alcohol poisoning become more and more noticeable. With the current level of alcohol consumption, the “average” in this respect, a man “suddenly” encounters a wide variety of ailments at the age of about 30 years. Most often - these are diseases of the stomach, liver, cardiovascular system. Neurosis, disorders in the sexual sphere. However, diseases can be the most unexpected: after all, the effect of alcohol is universal, it affects all organs and systems of the human body. Some scientists believe that after 100 grams of vodka, at least 8 thousand actively working cells die forever, mainly germ cells and brain cells.
The irreversible death of neurons as a result of thrombosis and microstrokes in the cerebral cortex leads to the loss of part of the information and to short-term memory impairments (FIRST OF ALL, THE BRAIN CELLS responsible for memory DIE, so those who “slightly” sorted out the next morning do not remember anything). At the same time, the processes of processing current information are hampered, which lead to the fixation of its most significant part in neural structures that provide long-term memory.
When doctors autopsy alcoholics who died from alcohol poisoning, they they are surprised not at how the brain is destroyed, but at how a person could continue to live with such a brain.
Thus, alcohol is, as it were, an invisible, but very powerful weapon aimed at depriving a person of reason.. And if a whole nation drinks, as our people were driven into this abyss of drunkenness, then this means depriving the mind of the entire nation and turning people from people who are intelligent, creative, thinking, forward-minded - into just a two-legged working herd.
Mechanism of alcohol intoxication
How does intoxication happen? Mechanism, chemistry of alcohol intoxication.
Intoxication - what is it? Why is the memory disabled. Hangover and redness of the nose.
Why does a person go crazy from alcohol?The question is not idle. Drunkards often say that they are poets: "we get drunk, we get drunk." In general, they invented different words in their defense. But a sober person can see that under the influence of alcohol a person naturally becomes stupid (becomes a fool, that is, perceives the surrounding reality not as it really is), and does not get tipsy. How does this happen?
A person, due to ignorance, immorality and lack of will, pours into himself an alcohol-containing liquid (beer, wine, vodka - there is no difference). Alcohol is absorbed into the blood, damages, sticks together red blood cells. These gluings with the bloodstream go to the brain, clog the brain cells. Brain cells begin to starve of oxygen. Brain cells begin to die en masse. The normal functioning of the cerebral cortex is disturbed and the person therefore becomes silly. We already know this. However, the process of alcohol intoxication in different people proceeds differently.
- In some, the occipital part of the brain is primarily disturbed - vestibular apparatus. They begin to chat, they begin to lose their balance.
- The second first the “moral” center is destroyed. They say about these: he did it drunk, he would never have been sober. Knowing this, it is quite obvious that a person under the influence of alcohol becomes crazy. His brain cells that control behavior are killed by alcohol.
- Third in the first place memory is destroyed. Medicine knows thousands of cases when in the morning a drunkard cannot remember where he was, what he did, with whom he drank. In his brain, instead of the cells that were supposed to remember yesterday, there is a scar as thick as a finger.
Areas of the brain
Agree that loss of balance, inadequate actions and loss of memory are all characteristics not of “hopping”, but of stupefaction, that is, what is characteristic of fools and schizophrenics. What happens to the brain of the drinker? What happens to these dead cells?
These cells are human tissue. The temperature under the skull is 36 ° C. These dead cells begin to rot and decompose. But in order for these rotting cells not to poison the brain completely, the body is forced to pump a huge amount of fluid under the skull. It is this liquid that presses the head with ticks in the morning to the one who drank the day before. This is what causes hangover headaches. To remove dead cells in the cerebral cortex, increased pressure is created due to increased fluid inflow and, in fact, direct physiological “washing” of the brain. It is with this that the tormenting thirst in the morning is connected - the need for an additional volume of liquid.
This is the reason why the body requires a lot of water to flush the remaining brains of dead brain cells. The liquid pumped under the skull dissolves the brain cells and in the morning drains them through the genitourinary system into the city sewer. hangover syndrome- nothing more than a process associated with the removal from the brain of neurons that died due to lack of blood supply. The body rejects dead cells, and morning headaches are associated with this.
Therefore, there is an absolutely accurate scientific aphorism:
The one who drinks vodka, wine and beer,
he urinates with his own brains in the morning.
We drank a lot of beer, vodka and wine - you will pour a lot of brains into the toilet. We drank a little beer, vodka and wine - you will drain your brains a little. But you'll get over it anyway, because such is the essence of the impact of this narcotic poison - alcohol.
Hypoxia - alcoholic euphoria
How does intoxication happen? Hypoxia, mechanism, chemistry of alcohol intoxication. Intoxication - what is it? Why is the memory disabled.
How are hypoxia (oxygen starvation) and alcoholic euphoria related? The state of excitement - the euphoria that occurs when taking alcoholic products, many researchers attribute to hypoxia. Hypoxia occurs when there is a blockage of the vessels of the brain and the supply of oxygen through the blood to the brain cells stops.
For a certain stage of oxygen starvation, a state of excitation is characteristic. Let us recall the tragic story of the Zenith balloon, which broke out 130 years ago on April 15, 1875. The crew of the balloon consisted of three people. At an altitude of 7 kilometers, the crew commander Tissanier consulted with satellites whether to continue the ascent. They agreed. Tissanier dropped several sandbags, the balloon quickly glided up. Everyone felt upbeat and joyful. “I have never felt so good,” Tissanier later said, “I felt that I was falling into a dream: light, pleasant, without dreams.” At the last moment, the unusual sensations nevertheless disturbed the experienced aeronaut and, already losing consciousness, he opened the valve of his oxygen device.
Tissanier woke up an hour later with a headache. He tried to move. The body did not obey him, he raised his hand with difficulty. With great effort, he reached his companions, both unconscious, a strange smile frozen on their lifeless white faces. Oxygen devices were not touched. This frozen joy horrified even the brave astronaut Tissanier.
He still managed to land the balloon. The energetic measures of the doctors saved his life. The remaining two participants in the flight died without regaining consciousness.
The tragic story of the Zenith seemed mysterious to the contemporaries of the flight. Now that high-altitude flights have become commonplace, this story is clear. The aeronauts were sure that they would feel a lack of oxygen and have time to turn on the oxygen bags. This was their mistake.
Now the change in the state of the human body and the subjective sensations of a person at different heights have been well studied. At an altitude of four kilometers, a person feels weak, dizzy. Even simple work quickly tires. Further, with increasing height, discomfort disappears. The person feels good, he is cheerful, excited. However, a small effort, one sharp movement, is enough - and the person loses consciousness. About the height of 8 kilometers in the reference books they say briefly: "death threatens." As it was possible to establish, Tissanier and his comrades reached a height of 8600 meters. The rest is self-explanatory.
It is interesting that the person himself usually does not notice the disturbances in the normal functioning of the body caused by height. Moreover, the weaker the consciousness becomes, the calmer, more confident it feels. If you tell him that he does not think well, he will say the opposite.
We see that the state of oxygen starvation is very similar to alcohol intoxication. The same overestimation of one's strengths ("the sea is knee-deep"), the same joyful, excited state, the same inability to critically evaluate one's actions. Everything is the same, only hypoxia of alcoholic origin is not caused by a lack of oxygen in the air, but by the difficulty of its delivery to the cells of the brain, tissues, organs as a result of circulatory disorders.
So, the fun associated with drinking alcohol is based on hypoxia. And hypoxia, in this case, as we see, is due to the agglutination of red blood cells and the formation of blood clots in small vessels. So, in order to feel the pleasure of drinking, it is necessary to cause vascular thrombosis. And vascular thrombosis is always the death of some cells, tissues. We thus arrive at the important conclusion that THERE ARE NO HARMFUL DOSES OF ALCOHOL IN PRINCIPLE.
The mechanism of cell destruction by alcohol
What are other mechanisms of destruction of the body by alcohol?
There is a direct mechanism for cell destruction. As we have already noted, ethyl alcohol is a universal solvent. Particularly good alcohol dissolves fats. But the shells of human cells are entirely composed of fatty molecules. What happens when a person swallows alcohol-containing liquid (beer, wine, vodka - no difference)?
The alcohol molecule approaches the fat molecule, interacts with it and knocks out the cell membrane. The cell is damaged. It is as a result of this alcoholic damage to the cell that anything can get inside it: “bad ecology”, chemistry, slags. Other molecules can be “pulled” inside the damaged cell through the wound inflicted by the alcohol molecule. And inside the cell - the nucleus, chromosomes. Ultimately, alcohol can completely kill this cell.
Scheme of the effect of alcohol on the human cell
Many people think that "there is nothing to feel sorry for the cells, we have billions of them." Who does not feel sorry for himself, he can think so. However, there are cells that are restored (which requires an additional load on the body), and there are cells that do not even partially recover.
The most sensitive to ethyl alcohol (alcohol) are the cells of the central nervous system (CNS), especially the cells of the cerebral cortex, influencing which, ethyl alcohol causes a characteristic alcoholic excitation associated with a weakening of inhibition processes. Then there is also a weakening of the processes of excitation in the cortex, oppression of the spinal cord and medulla oblongata with suppression of the activity of the respiratory center. The use of alcohol in large doses inside leads to a violation of the basic vital functions of the body.
We have touched upon only some aspects of the deeply inner life of the organism. We saw how debugged his work. But too many dangers coming from outside threaten the integrity of a very complex and fragile living system. Very often a person destroys his health of his own free will.
Ethyl alcohol invades the normal deep inner life of the body at the cellular level as a destroyer. The small size of an elementary molecule of wine alcohol eliminates the need for crushing it in the digestive tract - the oral cavity, esophagus, stomach and intestines. The presence of amphiphilic properties - the ability to dissolve in water and dissolve fats - provides favorable conditions for the absorption of ethanol. Already in the stomach, where about 20% of alcohol is absorbed, and in the duodenum, from which the rest of its amount enters the bloodstream, the physical and chemical properties of alcohol cause damage to the mucous membrane.
Alcohol interferes with the well-established mode of operation of the digestive tract, causing changes in the state of the mucosa throughout its entire length and thereby introducing dissonance into the processes of digestion and transport of food. The fine processes of parietal digestion are disturbed, the constancy of the structure of the plasma membranes of the cells of the intestinal wall changes.
Ethanol is absorbed by diffusion 13 . It should be noted that this operation is carried out by him at lightning speed. Ethyl alcohol, which freely overcomes the lipid-protein composition of membranes, mainly dilutes the hydrophobic (capable of not being wetted by water, as it were, “water-repellent”) lipid layer, ethyl alcohol is found in the blood within a few minutes after its intake.
Already with a single intake of ethanol, structural changes are observed in cell membranes. Fatty acids of phospholipid 14 components are shortened. Double bonds are formed in them, defective packaging of molecular material in membranes occurs. They become, as it were, "leaky", those substances for which the membrane usually serves as a barrier can penetrate into the cracks.
The vessels of the brain have a unique feature: due to the additional dense layer of surrounding glial cells, their wall is impermeable to many compounds. So nature has protected the brain both from random compounds and from the usual natural intermediate and final products of metabolism. Many amino acids, cholesterol, drugs are not able to pass passively from the general circulation to the brain tissue. The molecules must either be very small (such as oxygen molecules) or readily soluble in the lipid components of glial cell membranes. Ethanol meets these requirements.
The ethanol molecule is characterized by small size and has pronounced diphilic properties (the ability to dissolve in water and dissolve fats). The blood-brain barrier (a physiological mechanism that regulates the metabolism between blood, cerebrospinal fluid and the brain; protects the central nervous system from the penetration of foreign substances introduced into the blood or metabolic products) is not an obstacle for the ethanol molecule. Although the main part of the drunk alcohol (about 80%) is oxidized in the liver, 85 seconds after the appearance of alcohol in the blood, it is found in the cerebrospinal fluid, in the brain tissue.
If the concentration of alcohol in the blood is taken as one, then in the liver it will be 1.45, in the cerebrospinal fluid - 1.50, and in the brain - 1.75. Many brain cells are thus doomed. The effect of ethanol on the still intact neuron membranes, as well as the interference of ethanol in the normal functioning of mediator substances, distorts the signals coming to the brain, which is a violation of the entire neuropsychic activity of a person.
