What Drinkers Avoid Reading About: Alcohol and Your Liver

Here is a reminder about drinking alcohol and your liver. It is not material that heavy drinkers enjoy reading, but it's critical to know.

Your healthy liver metabolises alcohol at the rate of about one drink an hour. But that doesn't mean you should consume one alcoholic drink an hour every day. When you drink regularly - a lot - your liver becomes fatty. This reduces the ability of your liver to metabolize alcohol. This occurrence is reversible - just stop or substantially reduce your alcohol intake. But when you continue to drink heavily beyond this stage in your life, you might develop an inflamed liver, or alcohol hepatitis. At this point, the damage is reversible.

Most everyone knows that continued heavy drinking over your lifetime may cause your liver to become cirrhotic. That is when your liver has become shrunken and scarred. About 15–20% of chronic heavy drinkers develop hepatitis or cirrhosis. You can prevent further damage to your liver - but not reverse it.  Continued drinking after this stage can result in liver failure and death.

Now keep those New Year's resolutions about cutting back on drinking! 

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