Binge-drinking
 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-f...women-alcohol/

This query was sparked by an article in today's D Telegraph on drinking habits.which contained the following comment:

"“The Chief Medical Officers’ guidelines for both men and women are to keep health risks from alcohol to a low level by drinking 14 or fewer units of alcohol per week,” says Tyrell. But if you’re going to drink alcohol, those units shouldn’t be consumed all in one go. “You should spread your drinking out over three or more days. Don’t save all your units for the weekend.” "

Years ago I shared a flat with medical students and I remember one of them telling me their theory on this subject, based upon metabolising one unit /drink of alcohol per hour ( as in above article also ). Basically if you drink only one unit per day, then your liver will metabolise ( and be affected adversely ) by that one unit. If you save all your units for one day then whilst your liver is still only handling one unit per hour, some of the remaining alcohol will be excreted before being metabolised by the liver.

In the above example, the regualr moderate drinker will subject his liver to the harmful effects of seven units per week whereas the binger's liver will suffer from less ( unsure how much is excreted how quickly ). If this is correct, the binge drinker harms his health less ( possible injury excepted ) than the moderate drinker, and all these articles counselling against bingeing are incorrect. Is this correct, or is there a flaw somewhere ?

FOR THE LADIES
If you are, or suspect/intend to get pregnant avoid ALL alcohol.
If Breast feeding, any alcohol consumed will be appear in your milk.
If having a curry say, then the ‘effects/end result’ will be apparent 😉

TF
Very simply the liver metabolises alcohol. It is a washing machine. If you put too much alcohol / washing in it it will break and you will get liver failure
It is very good at repairing itself so if you dont binge and if you give it a rest for a couple of days a week the risk falls
Alcohol also does other things though, including a risk of cancer and this is related to total dose....
All very depressing especially when you remind me of my medical student days.....

Should I use this image as a reference for the unit? Not familiar with this notation

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....ca290a7bc8.png

Thank you, but is it true that some of the alcohol will be excreted before it has a chance to be metabolisd by the liver ?

I believe I recall reading sometime over the last 20 or so years , that the alcoholic content of a "unit of alcohol" has been modified downwards. Correct or not ? TIA

EDIT: Just used Wiki for the unit of alcohol and was surprised to find out that it is a national concept and can vary very widely.

Country Mass (g)

Albania[size=8333px] [/size] 14
Australia[size=8333px] [/size]10
Austria[ 20
France 10
Germany[size=8333px] [/size]11
New Zealand[ 10
United Kingdom[size=8333px] [/size] 8
United States 14

If correct, Austria is a notable exception, being twice the common European measure of 10g.

An excess of alcohol cannot be get rid off "bypassing" your liver, rather it will jam until being metabolised by the liver. This is why your alcohol blood content will sharply rise during binge drinking.
But the longer non-metabolised alcohol stays in your blood, the longer it will harm i.e. your brain, heart etc.
So the idea drinking all the weekly alcohol in one evening is definitely to be discarded.