It's not ethanol that makes you black out, it's...

The annual Spring Festival can be said to be one of the most anticipated traditional festivals for Chinese people. Of course, there are all kinds of delicious food and drinks during the Spring Festival. In addition to all kinds of fish and meat, many people will have some wine on the dinner table to liven up the atmosphere.

Wine culture has a long history in China. Whether it is a family gathering, a social gathering or during festivals, drinking is one of the essential activities.

However, alcohol is a drink that can cheer you up in moderation but can harm your body when you drink too much. Some people become blackouts after drinking for a while and when they wake up, they don't even remember what happened before they drank.

Source: pixabay

Why do people lose their memory after drinking alcohol? Is this true? Today, I will explain it to you.

Before explaining why alcohol can cause people to lose memory and remembrance, let us first understand what happens after alcohol enters the human body?

1

What happens when alcohol enters the human body?

The route that alcohol takes after entering the human body can be summarized as: esophagus - stomach - small intestine - blood , and finally metabolized and excreted.

At first, when you take a sip of cold beer, a small amount of alcohol will remain in your mouth, while most of it will enter your stomach through your esophagus.

Then, the alcohol in the stomach will stimulate the inner mucosa of the stomach, prompting it to secrete digestive juice. A large amount of digestive juice will surge up from the esophagus, causing stomach burning.

Afterwards, a small amount of alcohol in the stomach will be absorbed into the blood by the gastric mucosa due to its fat-soluble properties, and directly reach the brain through the blood circulation system, causing the brain's blood vessels to dilate and produce nerve excitement . At this time, the brain's inhibitory function is shut down, and the person's self-control ability is reduced. Most of the remaining alcohol will be diluted by gastric juice and then enter the small intestine.

The alcohol that reaches the small intestine continues to pass through the small intestinal wall into the blood, and is delivered to organs and tissues in various parts of the body during the blood circulation process. The alcohol concentration in the human blood reaches its peak.

At this time, under the influence of alcohol, the body will show symptoms of fever and sweating, the heart rate will gradually increase, and the brain will release more adrenaline, cortisol, norepinephrine and other substances under the stimulation of alcohol, making the drinker become very excited.

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About 10% of the alcohol that enters the blood will be excreted through the body's breathing and sweating, while the remaining 90% of the alcohol can only enter the liver, waiting to be further broken down.

How does the human liver break down alcohol? It is mainly done through the reaction of enzymes in the liver, which includes three steps in total:

In the first step, alcohol deoxygenase in the liver breaks down alcohol into acetaldehyde;

In the second step, acetaldehyde deoxidase in the liver breaks down acetaldehyde into acetic acid;

In the third step, deoxygenase further converts acetic acid into water and carbon dioxide, which are then excreted by the human body.

However, not everyone can successfully complete the "alcohol decomposition trilogy". Some people have lower levels of acetaldehyde deoxidase in their bodies, so after the alcohol is decomposed into acetaldehyde in the first step, the acetaldehyde cannot be further decomposed. The consequence is that a large amount of acetaldehyde will remain in the body, causing symptoms such as flushing of the face, nausea and dizziness. Acetaldehyde will also pass through the cell membranes of various organs and tissue cells and enter the interior of the cells, thereby destroying the genes in the cell nucleus, leaving the hidden danger of "cancer".

Source: Baidu Encyclopedia

I never thought that drinking alcohol would cause so many changes in the human body. How does it make us lose memory?

2

How does alcohol cause blackouts?

You should know that in the human brain, the part responsible for controlling memory is called the "temporal lobe". There is an important part in the temporal lobe called the "hippocampus". Under normal circumstances, the hippocampus will work with other nerve cells to be responsible for the brain's memory and keep a detailed record of what you see, hear and smell in a day.

However, if we drink a lot of alcohol, the alcohol will paralyze the temporal lobe, and the environment where the hippocampus "lives" will be affected. It will no longer be able to perform memory functions normally with other brain cells, resulting in a decline in the brain's memory ability and an inability to record normally. Therefore, the phenomenon of "blackouts" after drinking occurs.
It should be noted that although blackouts after drinking may seem to only cause memory loss, if the blackouts last for a long time, the harm can be very serious.

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Alcohol is a fat-soluble substance that can freely penetrate the blood and brain. Alcohol enters the brain through the blood circulation and stimulates and damages the central nervous system. Long-term excessive drinking will cause irreversible damage to the brain, and the drinker's memory will become worse and worse.

Drinking too much alcohol has no benefits but only harms, especially for people with underlying diseases. It may not only cause alcohol poisoning and induce various underlying diseases, but in severe cases it may even be fatal.

For pregnant women, alcohol can even directly cross the placenta and affect the fetus, causing growth defects and intellectual impairment during fetal development; for children and adolescents, they are still in the growth and development stage, and alcohol can damage their nervous system and affect the normal growth and development of the brain.

In fact, the only way to avoid "blackouts" is to drink less or even not drink at all. However, during the Chinese New Year, we are asked to completely refuse to drink, which is often impossible, but we can pay attention to the amount and way of drinking. For example, when drinking, do not drink carbonated drinks such as cola and Sprite at the same time, because the ingredients in carbonated drinks will speed up the body's absorption of alcohol and easily cause drunkenness; it is also recommended to eat something before drinking, because when drinking on an empty stomach , the body's blood absorbs alcohol faster and it is easy to get drunk.
Of course, from a health perspective, it is best not to consume alcohol!

Source: pixabay

During the Chinese New Year, while you are happy, don’t forget to take care of your health. In 2023, I wish you all good health, peace and happiness.