How Alcohol Can Affect Your Immune System

Ria provides access AA Step 1 Acceptance Is The First Step To Recovery to anti-craving medications, weekly coaching meetings, expert medical advice, and more—all from an app on your phone. Although you may experience some enjoyable effects from alcohol, you are likely aware of the potential harm over-consumption can do to your body. We have long heard about how alcohol can impair our motor skills, judgment, state of consciousness, and, of course, our liver.

1. The effect can linger for 6 months, but may go on longer if your grief is deep or doesn’t ease.
2. Studies have identified ethanol-mediated changes in both miRNA abundance (Miranda et al. 2010; Pietrzykowski 2010) and epigenetic modifications within PBMCs (Biermann et al. 2009; Bleich and Hillemacher 2009; Bonsch et al. 2006).
3. Frequent and heavy alcohol consumption can suppress the immune system, making the body vulnerable to viruses and infections.
4. “Although there is no evidence that moderate drinking harms the immune system, it is better to stick to wine or beer since these have lower percent alcohol,” Dasgupta says.
5. Together, these observations suggest that chronic alcohol consumption results in lymphopenia, which can increase homeostatic proliferation and accelerate conversion of naïve T cells into memory T cells (Cho et al. 2000).

The Impact of Alcohol on Your Body

“Alcohol has diverse adverse effects throughout the body, including on all cells of the immune system, that lead to increased risk of serious infections,” said Dr. E. Jennifer Edelman, a Yale Medicine addiction medicine specialist. Nicotine from cigarettes, chewing tobacco, or any other source can weaken your body’s ability to fight germs. Other chemicals in e-liquids seem to suppress your immune response, especially when you inhale them through vaping.

World Health Organization Health Topics Alcohol

Additional studies in rodents assessed the effects of alcohol on the effectiveness of bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination, which protects against tuberculosis. The studies found that when animals consumed ethanol before BCG vaccination, they were not protected against a subsequent pulmonary challenge with M. In contrast, mice that consumed ethanol after the BCG vaccination were protected against a subsequent M. Taken together, these data suggest that chronic ethanol exposure interferes with immunity to new antigens but not with immunity established before alcohol consumption.

Alcohol–immune interactions also may affect the development and progression of certain cancers. Meadows and Zhang discuss specific mechanisms through which alcohol interferes with the body’s immune defense against cancer. They note, too, that a fully functioning immune system is vital to the success of conventional chemotherapy. The clinical management of all of these conditions may be more challenging in individuals who misuse alcohol because of coexisting immune impairment.

Higher Vulnerability to Disease

Having a fully functioning immune system is crucial to successful chemotherapy treatment, so a person’s body may not handle or react to conventional chemotherapy as well if they drink alcohol. Alcohol consumption can allow the hepatitis virus to persist as a chronic condition, and alcohol use disorder combined with hepatitis often accelerates liver disease progression. Similarly, chronic consumption of 18 percent ethanol in water for 31 weeks resulted in impaired antigen-specific CD8 T-cell responses following inoculation with Listeria monocytogenes (Gurung et al. 2009).

Individualized, evidence based treatment, to fit your needs.

The goal is to treat the underlying cause of what’s compromising your immune system. Infusions, injection medications and antibiotics prescribed by an immunologist or allergist can also help make up for what your immune system is trying to do to protect against infections. To stop your immune system from attacking other parts of your body, doctors will often prescribe immunosuppressants to reduce inflammation and lower your immune system’s overactivity to a more manageable level.

Your gut microbiome is a hotbed of bacteria that help keep your digestive system happy and healthy. The trillions of microbes in your colon and large and small intestines are critical to proper digestion. You probably already know that excessive drinking can affect you in more ways than one.