Does alcohol cause nutrient deficiency?

A nourishing body cannot be achieved overnight! In order to get that proper nutrition, it is extremely vital to build up a long-term healthy lifestyle and dietary pattern. But we often forget to pick that healthy dietary pattern on occasions like a party or social gatherings that can hamper our health goals like no other. Alcohol is one such drink that is the centrepiece of parties and can easily interfere with the nutrition by taking you close to various health glitches.

Excessive and regular consumption of alcohol can easily affect your bodily processes and can easily hamper the process of digestion, storage, utilization and excretion of nutrients and therefore hit you with plenty of health whammy! Regular alcohol drinkers don’t eat a sufficient amount of food and the nutrients they consume won’t be consumed and utilized well in the body. Therefore, regular alcohol drinkers are mildly malnourished and if they are not into excessive drinking then there are chances that they are severely malnourished.

The consumption of alcohol can easily hinder the natural breakdown of nutrients in numerous ways:

• It declines the secretion of digestive enzymes from the pancreas.

• It damages the cells in the stomach and thus hinders the absorption of nutrients in the body.

• It slows down the process of nutrient transportation in the body and can even disable the transport of some nutrients into the blood.

• It hinders the utilization of nutrients by altering transport, storage and excretion.

• The consumption of alcohol can also disturb the body’s microbiome.

Excessive consumption of alcohol can hamper the functions of the body by affecting the body’s ability to metabolize nutrients and can also cause nutrient deficiencies.

Vitamins

Vitamins assist in regulating the various physiological process in the body which are quintessential to sustain growth and maintain normal metabolism. By disturbing the process of absorption, metabolism and utilization of vitamins, excessive drinking can easily lead to vitamin deficiencies. Regular drinkers are majorly deficient in various Vitamins like vitamin A, C, D, E, K and B vitamins. These deficiencies can further take you close to various health glitches like night blindness, diminished bone health, slow transportation of blood inside the body, decreased and slow healing of wounds, and severe neurological damage.

Minerals

Regular drinkers are majorly deficient in various minerals like calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc. Various researchers suggest that “drinking alcohol itself does not limit the absorption of minerals, but alcohol related problems do.”

The deficiencies of mineral in the body can also be a result of various other alcohol related conditions including:

• Diminished absorption of calcium triggered by fat malabsorption.

• The deficiency of magnesium due to reduced appetite and poor diet.

• The deficiency of magnesium due to excretion, vomiting and diarrhoea.

• The deficiency of iron due to gastrointestinal bleeding.

Health complications

Excessive drinking can easily hamper your nutrition which can affect you in plenty of ways. Here are some health complications that are associated with poor diet and excessive consumption of alcohol.

• Liver disease

• Heart disease

• Brain damage

• Pancreatitis

• Digestive problems

Footnote

Make sure to quit drinking in order to live a healthy life. If you are a regular drinker, then it is extremely vital to consult a doctor to formulate your nutritional requirements. If you are an occasional drinker, then make sure that you keep a tab on the quantities you are consuming and always consume balanced meals in order to avoid any negative health effects.