Drinking 4 or 5 glasses of wine, more than 1.5 liters of beer, or more than 200 milliliters of pure alcohol in less than 2 hours , the official definition of excessive alcohol consumption, can harm a person’s health more than it is expected. thought, according to a new study published in the journal PloS One .
There are many studies that confirm that excessive alcohol consumption is linked to an increased risk of car accidents and injuries , and of course, long-term damage to the liver and other organs of the human body. Now, this study has found evidence that a single binge session can harm health due to bacteria shed by the intestine into the bloodstream and the release of endotoxins.
Those responsible for this work are a team of researchers from the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester (USA), who carried out an experiment analyzing the blood samples of the participants, 11 men and 14 women, who were subjected to a consumer experiment of alcoholic beverages. The researchers analyzed the volunteers’ blood samples as early as 1 hour after ingestion and then every half hour for a 4-hour period. Finally, they performed a final extraction 24 hours later.
After analyzing the samples, the researchers found signs of a rapid increase in endotoxins (higher in women than in men) as well as bacterial DNA , indicating that the bacteria had moved from the intestine to the bloodstream, being able to travel to other parts of the body. This study proves, once again, that alcohol consumption increases the risk of bacterial infection, and that a single intensive session of alcohol consumption can endanger our health.
