I’m wondering what is the mechanism behind this. I’ve noticed some of my old school friends who like to binge every weekend, already looking pretty rough in the face at 26-27 years old. Wrinkles, “old looking” skin etc. is what I’m talking about. Not even alcoholics but just guys who like to drink heavily on weekends.
What is it about alcohol that makes this happen?
In: Biology
Alcohol dehydrates your body and draws a lot of nutrients from it, especially the skin. Alcohol also damages the liver, which is responsible for storing nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. When someone’s liver is not functioning as it should, it tends to show in their physical appearance. One of the other things that i think gets overlooked is just how much alcohol affects your sleep pattern. It’s been proven that you don’t actually get a proper sleep when going to bed heavily intoxicated. Add all this together and over the span of, say, a decade you will eventually begin to look a lot older than you are.
To add on to the other answer, inflammation is a huge part of this. Heavy drinking can cause inflammation pretty much everywhere in the body, which will age you faster and can give you a bloated, puffy appearance.
Heavy drinking puts a lot of stress on the body, too, and I think everyone knows how stress can age people. It’ll mess up your sleep cycles, for one thing, and sleep is a really important time for rest and repair.
Heavy drinkers may also not be eating the best diets, and may struggle to absorb and utilise all of the nutrients they do get due to liver and gut problems. This malnutrition also significantly contributed to the ageing of alcoholics.
Latest Answers