I found out recently from my dad that one of his business associates/friend is on the list for a liver transplant due to liver cirrhosis. When my dad found out he couldn't believe that a person for who he swears never drank more than 2 glasses of wine at a dinner, was apparently high functioning alcoholic. The man in question seems to have fooled a lot of people and he certainly was high functioning as he managed to operate 2 business while having a wide range of friends without anyone noticing (he seemed fit for his age as well). Apparently it's the hard liquor in small doses that he "used" and that eventually got to him...
I am no MD - but I am curious, perhaps someone who has a clue can comment on what I am going to say.
I believe that Liver Cirrhosis is caused by scaring due to fat being retained in the liver. I understand that fat is retained when the liver is metabolizing alcohol, and that if this is a short term thing then the liver can expel the fat and no scaring occurs. But if you persistently force your liver to metabolize alcohol scars appear and this is irreversible - the scarred part of the liver cannot recover and provides no function from this point.
My question is, what is the amount of time that you should leave for the liver to have cleared alcohol and how long would it take for fat to be expelled?
Not an MD, but in my experience this seems a question that MDs don't like to answer - for good reason. (I.e. if I understood your question correctly)
There is so much individuality involved (genetics, history, liver health in general), and so much "it depends" (amount of alcohol, size of liver, food intake, ...) that you cannot possibly stick a definitive number to that question.
Also, the question seems dangerous: What are you going to do with an answer? Drink to a certain limit, in good conscience?
EDIT: I realized that I am maybe a little sensitive, and the question could be read the other way round, giving the liver enough time to recover between two occasional (small) intakes. That is actually an interesting question.
Leaving original answer (but please don't be triggered by me failing to read the question correctly):
And you're free to do so.
But don't expect an absolution from a health professional, in the form of a number that is "always entirely safe, under all circumstances".
Alcohol is essentially a poison for the body, which he can tolerate quite well in respectable amounts, compared to other toxins (we can actually "buffer" a certain amount AFAIK).
But talking about lesions in liver tissue growing back without scarring or long-lasting consequences is really out of the safe zone if you ask me. So your questions is clearly rubbing me the wrong way.
Also, sometimes your liver can be weakened or inflamed (without you realizing), and then obviously every drop counts.
I will say that early in my life I saw some extremely healthy and clean living friends killed by events and disease and I learned that we all only have a short time to live, despite the promises and absolutions we might get from doctors or priests. However, there is a difference between taking some risks and risking your life - and I guess that exploiting drugs, and sex, and rock and roll for pleasure can be in either category.
There isn't a safe zone - even complete abstinence isn't safe....
It's interesting to think what change in attitude and advice the existance of a "safe zone" would create - if medicine could really save us (allow us to live reliably much longer), if only we didn't do silly things. I sometimes think that a lot of folks operate as if that were true now, and get shocked when it turns out that it isn't. There are so many stories that start with "he used to run three times a week, never smoked and then..."
There is a saying where my folks are from: "Dying from fear of death will just as well kill you".
But what I learned the last few years is that I don't miss the things that I thought were "living" when I was young. Drinking or "Nights out" is one of them. Also: Everything "Internet" (Netflix, Youtube, News, ...). Especially when it actually hinders me from experiencing life (it will steal your day).
That does not mean I regret anything. I made my experiences, everyone should, I think this is an important part of growing up for a lot of people.
Nowadays, eating healthy/well, exercise, etc. are the things that make me feel more alive and well - these are the things that make life "better".
But also I have two small kids, so there is no time and space for all these "silly things". And for the same reason I eat to much crap and don't exercise nearly enough for my taste. And I watch way too much YouTube.
Moral: Do your best and try to enjoy it. Nobody can tell you if the bus is waiting for you the next corner. But wether it changes anything if you are drunk at the time is up to you.
Another reason is that MD are not simultaneously experts on nutrition and alcohol. What are exacts safe amounts for this or that is not all that large part of their education.
> Also, the question seems dangerous: What are you going to do with an answer? Drink to a certain limit, in good conscience?
That is actually useful question with useful answer.
Not a medical professional either, but I once heard that keeping 2 consecutive days out of every week alcohol free as sufficient for preventing liver cirrhosis.
I think that there is another factor - extreme abuse!
It seems pretty obvious from even a casual acquaintance with alcohol that consuming 10 units in a sitting (one or maybe two bottles by the OP's rating depending on the Georgian sizing and strengths) is extremely bad for you. Anything that steals your sleep and leaves you feeling sick with a headache is kinda self evidently bad - right?
This is promoted as a minimum, generally the advice here in the UK right now seems to be "leave more alcohol-free days",
The medical establishment here seems to frown on the "glass of wine every night" habit these days, in favour of having a few drinks a couple of times a week (if you must drink).
I honestly lose track of what's good and bad for you on any given day.
You would need to stop less frequently and for a longer interval to see health benefits.
For heavy drinkers stopping and starting every week would cause withdrawals, which is dangerous and often worse than consistent heavy drinking. Weekend Warriors are actually doing a lot of damage to their body for this reason.
Alcohol is a very strong depressant, your nervous system will adjust to it and will be over stimulated if you cut it off abruptly. A minor symptom of this would be anxiety... severe symptoms could be psychosis, seizures or death.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_withdrawal_syndrome
I‘ve heard that 6 weeks without a drop of alcohol should be sufficient for the liver to recover. But it is very important to very strictly not consume alcohol. Just reducing alcohol a little bit will help nothing.
It's been shown (in rats) that saturated fats are protective against cirrhosis and unsaturated fats (linoleic acid in this case) are required for liver injury.
Might explain why some people can drink like fish and have perfectly healthy livers while others suffer badly.
Just listened to a Revisionist History episode that called out the harms of over-consumption of linoleic acid. Apparently the shift away from animal and towards vegetable oils in the '70s and '80s caused a lot of adverse health effects because we now consume multiples of the amount of linoleic acid that we did in previous generations.
The example I gave got my dad and me into discussion about what is the effect of choice of alcohol which a person (mis)uses excessively, on the probability and severity of alcoholism related illnesses.
To put it bluntly, is getting frequently drunk from beer/wine less harmful long term than getting drunk from spirits?
That’s a great question. As a fellow non-MD I can only speculate too. But my guess would be that assuming you balanced the quantities of alcohol consumed EXACTLY then it’d be better to drink whisky or vodka than beer, since you’d end up consuming fewer calories per “unit” of alcohol overall. However, I think it’s also much easier to go overboard with the whisky given how small each measure is and how quickly it’s possible to drink it if you’re not paying attention. So it’s hard to say.
I think deep down we know when we are at the level of problem-drinking, whether that’s with whisky, vodka, beer, wine or anything else. It’s about facing up to it at that point and not trying to deny or justify it. This is coming from someone who drank more than usual during covid isolation and thankfully scaled it back when I realised I was waking up feeling awful every other day.
Would the damage depend on the pacing ? I recall reading an opinion that spirits are more harmful because they ramp up one's blood alcohol level more quickly, and this in and of itself causes a particular harm.
> It took another fifty years for the definition of a gentlemen to change to exclude people who got roaring drunk and pissed in the fireplace in the name of hospitality.
On the contrary, providing the above is done with panache it would pass quite well here..... *Never* whilst wearing White Tie though.
White Tie is formal dress; attending opera, meeting royalty, heads of state and the like. Gentlemen wear tailcoat (with medals), shirt with winged collar and white bow tie, or military dress uniform.
Black Tie ("Tuxedo" to use the Americanism) is semi-formal. A dinner jacket and a black bow tie *never* with a winged collar.
Whilst White Tie events are very formal, at a Black Tie event, one may still drink, puke and shag, provided it is done with style.
That "Five Bottle Man" quote from the Morning Chronicle might be tongue-in-cheek but I'm pretty sure it's about "Cinque Ports Volunteers", not "Cinq Port Volunteers", which doesn't refer to the drink but rather the Cinque Ports, a group of coastal towns in Kent.
I strongly suspect that there might be a shared running gag going on here. "Oh, Lord Brasenose? He left the cavalry and now he's enlisted with the Cinque Ports Volunteers."
I assumed this was a pun, port being a wine as well as Dover etc, but it seems Pitt actually was Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and actively involved in raising volunteers, at the time that newspaper article was written:
There was a fascinating passage from a book I saw somewhere, that described the extreme and universal consumption of alcohol as the early way to adapt to a big city life - before other ways of dealing with people around were invented. It was tough to be surrounded by so many people, and apparently we picked up just enough customs, rituals, and technique of organizing space to think we can deal with it. Unfortunately I don't think I'll ever be find that book again
I notice that their metric for "did not damage… his health" is "He died at 87." What was his quality of life like? Did he suffer acutely from gout, or have other health problems that limited what he could do, and his enjoyment of life? There are better measures of health than longevity.
45 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 88.3 ms ] threadI believe that Liver Cirrhosis is caused by scaring due to fat being retained in the liver. I understand that fat is retained when the liver is metabolizing alcohol, and that if this is a short term thing then the liver can expel the fat and no scaring occurs. But if you persistently force your liver to metabolize alcohol scars appear and this is irreversible - the scarred part of the liver cannot recover and provides no function from this point.
My question is, what is the amount of time that you should leave for the liver to have cleared alcohol and how long would it take for fat to be expelled?
There is so much individuality involved (genetics, history, liver health in general), and so much "it depends" (amount of alcohol, size of liver, food intake, ...) that you cannot possibly stick a definitive number to that question.
Also, the question seems dangerous: What are you going to do with an answer? Drink to a certain limit, in good conscience?
I'm doing that already.
Leaving original answer (but please don't be triggered by me failing to read the question correctly):
And you're free to do so.
But don't expect an absolution from a health professional, in the form of a number that is "always entirely safe, under all circumstances".
Alcohol is essentially a poison for the body, which he can tolerate quite well in respectable amounts, compared to other toxins (we can actually "buffer" a certain amount AFAIK).
But talking about lesions in liver tissue growing back without scarring or long-lasting consequences is really out of the safe zone if you ask me. So your questions is clearly rubbing me the wrong way.
Also, sometimes your liver can be weakened or inflamed (without you realizing), and then obviously every drop counts.
I will say that early in my life I saw some extremely healthy and clean living friends killed by events and disease and I learned that we all only have a short time to live, despite the promises and absolutions we might get from doctors or priests. However, there is a difference between taking some risks and risking your life - and I guess that exploiting drugs, and sex, and rock and roll for pleasure can be in either category.
There isn't a safe zone - even complete abstinence isn't safe....
It's interesting to think what change in attitude and advice the existance of a "safe zone" would create - if medicine could really save us (allow us to live reliably much longer), if only we didn't do silly things. I sometimes think that a lot of folks operate as if that were true now, and get shocked when it turns out that it isn't. There are so many stories that start with "he used to run three times a week, never smoked and then..."
But what I learned the last few years is that I don't miss the things that I thought were "living" when I was young. Drinking or "Nights out" is one of them. Also: Everything "Internet" (Netflix, Youtube, News, ...). Especially when it actually hinders me from experiencing life (it will steal your day).
That does not mean I regret anything. I made my experiences, everyone should, I think this is an important part of growing up for a lot of people.
Nowadays, eating healthy/well, exercise, etc. are the things that make me feel more alive and well - these are the things that make life "better".
But also I have two small kids, so there is no time and space for all these "silly things". And for the same reason I eat to much crap and don't exercise nearly enough for my taste. And I watch way too much YouTube.
Moral: Do your best and try to enjoy it. Nobody can tell you if the bus is waiting for you the next corner. But wether it changes anything if you are drunk at the time is up to you.
> Also, the question seems dangerous: What are you going to do with an answer? Drink to a certain limit, in good conscience?
That is actually useful question with useful answer.
It seems pretty obvious from even a casual acquaintance with alcohol that consuming 10 units in a sitting (one or maybe two bottles by the OP's rating depending on the Georgian sizing and strengths) is extremely bad for you. Anything that steals your sleep and leaves you feeling sick with a headache is kinda self evidently bad - right?
The medical establishment here seems to frown on the "glass of wine every night" habit these days, in favour of having a few drinks a couple of times a week (if you must drink).
I honestly lose track of what's good and bad for you on any given day.
For heavy drinkers stopping and starting every week would cause withdrawals, which is dangerous and often worse than consistent heavy drinking. Weekend Warriors are actually doing a lot of damage to their body for this reason.
There is also a positive feedback effect called Kindling, from sudden withdrawals, which makes subsequent ones worse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindling_(sedative%E2%80%93hyp...
The NHS is of the opinion that 2 weeks suffice.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/alcohol-related-liver-disease-...
Might explain why some people can drink like fish and have perfectly healthy livers while others suffer badly.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2915600/
Edit: More info: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3650500/
Podcast: https://blog.simonsays.ai/the-basement-tapes-with-malcolm-gl...
(Somewhat biased, but still a good summary of the research) article on linoleic acid: https://theecologist.org/2014/feb/24/linoleic-acid-overwhelm...
I think deep down we know when we are at the level of problem-drinking, whether that’s with whisky, vodka, beer, wine or anything else. It’s about facing up to it at that point and not trying to deny or justify it. This is coming from someone who drank more than usual during covid isolation and thankfully scaled it back when I realised I was waking up feeling awful every other day.
On the contrary, providing the above is done with panache it would pass quite well here..... *Never* whilst wearing White Tie though.
I'm British if you hadn't guessed :-)
"Never trust a man who doesn't drink".
I’m not being presumptuous or accusing you of anything, I really genuinely do not know and it sounds like it could be interesting :-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_tie
Black Tie ("Tuxedo" to use the Americanism) is semi-formal. A dinner jacket and a black bow tie *never* with a winged collar.
Whilst White Tie events are very formal, at a Black Tie event, one may still drink, puke and shag, provided it is done with style.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_tie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_tie
How else will you show off the nice clip on your tie?
(:mischievous-face:, /s, et al.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Cinque_Ports_Artillery_Vol...
I strongly suspect that there might be a shared running gag going on here. "Oh, Lord Brasenose? He left the cavalry and now he's enlisted with the Cinque Ports Volunteers."
A bit like the nineteenth hole on a golf course.
During Pitt's time, however, if a French invasion of Britain had taken place it would likely have been in that particular region.
http://www.geocities.ws/cinqueportsvolunteers/HISTORY.htm#Th...