What Alcohol Does to Your Body

Drinks may not be a huge part of

your

gains because

alcohol

prevents protein from building up in muscle tissue. Absolutely fascinating

what

's going on there! So, okay, the

alcohol

is now, if we take a step back to do this kind of process... the alcohol is now straight to the brain. So

what

we're going to do is jump into some brains and examine them. Good! So the blood pumps directly to the brain and that's what we have here. This upper part is called the brain, it is very folded and has an incredible structure. In fact, I made a whole video about this section, called the prefrontal cortex, so you should definitely watch this video.

This lower portion is called the cerebellum. But what we really want to see because it's cool is that if I turn it over, you can see that there is, if you look closely, this gray outer part and then this white inner part. These are gray and white material respectively. Gray matter is where brain cells called neurons communicate with each other. So let's imagine billions of connections in this little area that I'm traversing with the probe, and that's where they're just talking. And they speak using something called neurotransmitters. And I guarantee you've heard of neurotransmitters. The two most famous are probably dopamine and serotonin, but there are others like GABA and glutamate that ethanol will also affect.

And ethanol will also affect the release of endorphins, which, it all adds up. So, without getting too grainy or fun, you will have pleasure, euphoria, lower

your

inhibitions, and lower your cognitive abilities and reflexes. When you put it all together, basically think of it this way... If you lower your inhibitions, then you start saying and doing things that you normally wouldn't do. If you also drink alcohol, you come up with this great idea: "What if I take off my pants, jump on the table and shout: I'm the king of the world?" Anyone who

does

n't drink, this is a terrible idea.

But someone who has five shots of tequila is smart! It's not only smart, it's necessary! It just shows that your ability to choose has gone out the window. But you literally think slower. You are also elated. You're happy about that! It's a really strange combination. But that's just the effect it has on neurological tissue; It will also affect your hormonal system. So what I want to do is look at another dissection, and this is the sagittal head that we've already seen, so we can focus on these two structures here. This first one that I go through with my probe is called the hypothalamus and it will be right above another relative known as the pituitary gland.

Together they form the hypothalamic-pituitary axis. And it's an important word that really isn't that necessary to remember. Just understand that these two structures control your entire hormonal system. The hypothalamus more or less controls the pituitary gland. Therefore, it will secrete hormones that govern the pituitary gland. But the hypothalamus constantly monitors your

body

. So when you start drinking, the hypothalamus notices and will start to adapt based on the ethanol. In fact, it will tell the pituitary gland to start around the adrenal glands. And your adrenal glands are what secrete cortisol, which is the stress hormone, and epinephrine and norepinephrine, also known as adrenaline.

Think about this...if you drink, not only do you have fewer options, your inhibitions are gone, but now you are stressed and adrenaline is rushing through your system. If you remember a moment ago, we were talking about the sympathetic nervous system and increasing heart rate and all that. So it's a pretty powerful mix. But not only that, the pituitary also slows down the secretion of a hormone known as antidiuretic hormone. So a diuretic is something that makes you urinate. Therefore, the antidiuretic hormone would cause you to retain water. But what happens is that ethanol affects the secretion of ADH, and that will have a pretty big effect on the kidney.

See how the kidney works - it's a really cool dissection. Many amazing structures can be seen here, and these are simply kidney pyramids. And this outer part is called the cortex of the kidney and in it are all these little filtration units that filter the blood. You see, blood is pumped (let's see if I can catch it) through this artery called the renal artery. And then it goes out to the outside of the kidney and is filtered into the urine, which then goes out into the long tube, the ureter, then the bladder, and then into the outside world.

This means that your urine was once blood. Well, now ADH is not secreted, the blood vessel, think about it, another name for ADH, or antidiuretic hormone, is vasopressin. And I like that name because it sounds like you're putting pressure on the blood vessels. Because that's what it will do. This will actually constrict the kidney's blood vessels, meaning less volume of blood can pass through and filter, meaning less urine is produced. But if you drink alcohol, this will happen frequently. I remember I used to be; before I knew it, years ago, I was confused... like I was drinking a beer... like trying to do the math in my head.

I thought, "Okay. I drank a lot... but I peed a lot..." It never made sense to me, but it's due to low ADH. But what this means is that you are now drying up. You get rid of all this liquid, and more liquid than you take in through the alcoholic beverage. This also means that on the inside of this, without going into too much detail, to make the whole process efficient, the kidney will drop electrolytes into the urinary tract. And that means that when you urinate, you're going to lose electrolytes. And it's going to be important when we talk about hangovers, or maybe important.

But think about it this way: Not only are you dehydrated, you're also reducing your ability to rehydrate because electrolytes draw water into your

body

. So I'm sure you're starting to see where this is going... you're crazy on adrenaline and stress hormones... you make bad decisions, you're happy about it, and you have to pee all the time! I mean, if that

does

n't sum up the alcohol experience, I don't know what does! At the same time, alcohol does not affect all individuals exactly the same. There are certain things that affect how it affects you. So, for example, sex is an important topic.

You see, women have a higher percentage of body fat. And let's say I have a man and a woman who weigh exactly the same and drink exactly the same amount of alcohol. Well, what will happen is that since the woman has a higher percentage of body fat, this also means that she actually has less blood volume. That same amount of alcohol is more concentrated in her lower blood volume than in a man's, which means it can affect her more intensely. But factors such as age will also play a very important role. You have things like genetics.

There are certain people who simply cannot produce enough enzymes to break down alcohol properly. As we mentioned earlier, do you have food in your stomach? Do you have alcohol in your stomach? All of these things are going to play a pretty important role. But we haven't even talked about what happens after all this... after all the fun: the hangover. In reality, hangovers are still quite mysterious. We have general ideas, as I can see, the hangover is essentially because you are dehydrated, lack of sleep, maybe just physically beaten because who knows what you do... like jumping on tables and saying that you are the "King of the world".

We can say that in general there are all these little things that add up to create a hangover. But when you start trying to analyze the specific pathophysiology (the real causes), it is difficult to figure out what is happening. One of the biggest culprits (at least what we think) is the acetaldehyde we mentioned above. So remember that acetaldehyde is more toxic than ethanol itself. So the idea is that too much acetaldehyde can start to create a hangover, or at least some of the hangover symptoms. Which I should probably call the symptoms! I mean it's going to be things, and it's everyone's favorite, right?

You were all there. Diarrhea, nausea, possible vomiting, just plain fatigue – you're just exhausted. And you have an extreme loss of appetite, which is interesting because when we talk about how to get over a hangover, there's also not much understanding of what can solve it besides time. I don't know about you, but I've probably heard every drug under the sun. I used to be in the United States Marine Corps and if any of you know the United States Marines, we like to drink. And that's why I remember hearing so many different remedies after a weekend of inappropriate drinking.

And my visit was actually, don't judge me too harshly for this, my visit was as greasy a McDonald's breakfast sandwich as I could get, and then some kind of sports drink like Gatorade or Powerade. And I did it because someone told me it would work at some point, and I kept doing it. There is no evidence that it really helps that much. Some people will say coffee. Some people say a shower. Sleep is obvious: it will definitely help. But the only thing that is really proven is time itself. You have to wait. If you are simply dependent, there is no magic pill.

Although I'm curious to see if you can leave in the comments below what you've heard, what you do, or what you swear by, because don't get me wrong, as I still do to this day. Despite everything I know... if I'm hungover, my first thought is to go get a good breakfast sandwich, and that will fix it. And the funny thing is, it never does, but I keep doing it anyway. Again, please don't try to judge me too harshly... Thank you all for watching! I filmed the video, but I want to take a moment and just thank those who donate their bodies to science.

Because I'm trying to make this lighthearted and fun so we can at least enjoy it, I also want to be respectful and understand the wonderful gift you've been given. Because without your generous gift we wouldn't be able to show these kinds of things. What I usually tell my students is: five minutes with a kidney or five minutes with any structure, you learn more than in five hours in the classroom. Or maybe you'll learn something else that you just couldn't learn in the classroom. And as fun as this video is, it's fun to see these structures so you can better understand and hopefully make better decisions with your drink.

Especially with St. Patrick's Day, or I don't know, maybe it's Wednesday, for some of you. But again, I just want to thank those who donate their bodies to science. But as always, like, comment and subscribe if you haven't already. What if you haven't? What are you doing? We try to make videos about once a week. Sometimes twice a week. And if the stars align, we'd like to release three to four videos per week. But be sure to hit the notification bell so you'll be the first to see the videos when they appear. But if you're going to drink, do it responsibly.

And try not to take off your pants and say you're king of the world... If you don't, that's a win as far as I'm concerned.