{"id":410071,"date":"2026-06-05T09:22:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T09:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/?p=410071"},"modified":"2026-06-05T09:22:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T09:22:26","slug":"you-can-reverse-much-of-the-damage-alcohol-has-done-to-your-body-science-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/2026\/06\/05\/you-can-reverse-much-of-the-damage-alcohol-has-done-to-your-body-science-says\/","title":{"rendered":"You can reverse much of the damage alcohol has done to your body, science says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Alcohol\u00a0can feel deeply entwined in our lives. A beer or glass of wine while catching up with friends. A cocktail at the end of a hard day. A round of toasts at a party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard to believe that such seemingly innocent behavior reduces our immunity to infectious disease and raises the risk of cancer and other chronic diseases \u2014 but according to science, it does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlcohol is inherently toxic. We use alcohol to disinfect; we use alcohol to kill organisms. So, the question is, is any amount of it safe?\u201d said Dr. Andrew Freeman, director of cardiovascular prevention and wellness at National Jewish Health in Denver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A growing number of studies say \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, the\u00a0latest data\u00a0finds drinking alcohol is directly responsible for 62 different disorders, including alcohol-related heart disease, psychotic disorder, gastritis, ulcers, pancreatitis and fatty liver disease, as well as more well-known conditions such as fetal alcohol syndrome and cirrhosis of the liver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese conditions are 100% alcohol attributable, meaning these diseases would not even exist in the world without alcohol use,\u201d said J\u00fcrgen Rehm, a senior scientist at Institute for Mental Health Policy Research in Toronto. Rehm has conducted research on alcohol\u00a0since 2003\u00a0in conjunction with the World Health Organization and scientists in the United States, Europe and the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are another 30 diseases in which alcohol plays a role, such as breast and other cancers, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, dementia,\u201d Rehm said. \u201cThese diseases would exist even without alcohol use, but alcohol use is responsible for a certain proportion of them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The body\u2019s ability to fight infection is impacted as well. Even one drink of alcohol damages the immune system, lowering its ability to battle invaders\u00a0within 20 minutes\u00a0of consumption. Chronic drinking may permanently impact critical immune cells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The health harms of alcohol are greatest for daily heavy drinkers, Rehm says, but there\u2019s a catch. Research often defines heavy drinking as more than 40 grams (1.4 ounces) of pure alcohol a day for women and 60 grams (2.1 ounces) a day for men. A standard drink, at least in the US, has 14 grams (0.6 ounce) of pure alcohol or 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just think about watching your bartender pour a couple of ounces of spirits into your favorite cocktail and voil\u00e0 \u2014 you could be on your way to being a heavy drinker that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Many drinks contain much more alcohol than consumers realize, thus increasing the health risks.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Booze is not limited to hard liquor, either: Red and white wine, beer, hard cider, mead, sherry, port, vermouth and sake all contain alcohol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just how do those drinks affect your longevity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur team at the institute worked on a\u00a0free app\u00a0which shows how many minutes and days of life are lost with each drink,\u201d Rehm said. \u201cIt will also show you how many minutes and days you gain when you stop drinking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You see, for all the sobering news of alcohol\u2019s effects on your health, there\u2019s a silver lining. Many of the diseases attributed to alcohol can be slowed, stopped and even reversed if action is taken soon enough. Here\u2019s what science has found so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alcohol and infectious disease<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re not aware of the impact of a drink on your ability to fight off infections such as colds, flu and Covid-19, that\u2019s understandable. While the link between alcohol and pneumonia has been known\u00a0since 1785, large scale discussion on the\u00a0impact of liquor\u00a0on immunity began in the 1990s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alcohol disrupts the ability of the body\u2019s innate immune system \u2014 the one you\u2019re born with \u2014 as well as any acquired immunity you\u2019ve developed from exposure to other pathogens. It takes very little alcohol to immediately depress the ability of key white blood cells such as\u00a0macrophages,\u00a0<\/strong>neutrophils\u00a0and\u00a0natural killer cells\u00a0to fight viruses, bacterial infections and cancer cells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One\u00a0binge drinking episode\u00a0(typically four or more drinks in a few hours) can disrupt immune response for\u00a024 hours.\u00a0Long thought to be a problem only in teens and college-age youth, binge drinking is\u00a0on the rise\u00a0in the US, especially among women over 30 and adults over 65.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, the immediate effects of alcohol on the immune system don\u2019t last long. Depending on levels of consumption, the body bounces back within days to a week, Rehm said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, chronic alcohol use can\u00a0stunt or kill\u00a0natural killer cells and T-cells, the immune system\u2019s elite strike force, leading to a higher vulnerability to infections such as pneumonia, HIV and tuberculosis. While long-term abstinence can help, experts say some impairments may be only partially reversible, depending on how long and how much alcohol was consumed. In fact, severe alcoholics may become\u00a0immunocompromised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alcohol and cancer<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Alcohol is the third-leading preventable cause of cancer in the US after tobacco and obesity, according to former US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy. He issued\u00a0an advisory\u00a0warning in early 2025 that called for an\u00a0updated warning label\u00a0on alcoholic beverages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlcohol is a well-established, preventable cause of cancer responsible for about 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths annually in the United States \u2014 greater than the 13,500 alcohol-associated traffic crash fatalities per year in the US \u2014 yet the majority of Americans are unaware of this risk,\u201d Murthy\u00a0said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All types of alcohol contribute to cancer by damaging DNA and increasing chronic inflammation, according to the\u00a0US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For women the top risk is alcohol-associated breast cancer. Colorectal cancer is the most frequently associated cancer related to alcohol among men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Removing alcohol from your daily life will reverse health harms, experts say, as long as it’s done before permanent damage occurs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Abstinence will stop the advance of any cancer that is caused by alcohol, but it\u2019s not a guarantee, said Sinclair Carr, a doctoral student at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston who is affiliated with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCancer takes years to develop. Therefore, you may already have cancer inside of you that was caused by alcohol, and you may still get cancer after stopping,\u201d Carr said. \u201cHowever, if you do not have any cancer inside of you and you stop drinking, you eliminate the future of any alcohol-attributable cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wondering how long it takes to be sure your history of regular drinking did not contribute to cancer?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAbout 30 years, the same as for tobacco,\u201d Rehm said. \u201cIf you are a relatively heavy drinker, you can think about it like this: One drink is one cigarette. Shocking, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, the causes of cancer are multifaceted. Still, when it comes to alcohol, cancer is a chronic disease where \u201cstopping drinking may have good outcomes, because a lot of the harm can be reversed,\u201d Rehm said. \u201cThe problem is that most people start thinking about stopping when they\u2019re almost beyond the point that they experience the full benefits of reversal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alcohol and brain damage<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It used to be said that alcohol kills brain cells, but science today finds it destroys the connections between neurons, leading to brain shrinkage, especially in areas responsible for\u00a0memory and decision-making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the largest studies to date found three drinks a week raised the\u00a0risk for dementia\u00a0by 15% compared to one drink a week. Brain damage caused by alcohol is partly reversible, however, depending on whether the insult to the brain is acute or long-term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cImaging studies suggest that cerebral atrophy, the shrinking of brain tissue, may partially recover within weeks to months of stopping drinking, with measurable changes often beginning in the first few weeks,\u201d Carr said. \u201cCognitive functions such as attention, executive function, and memory can also improve with abstinence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, chronic heavy drinking and binge drinking appears to contribute to longer-term brain changes that are associated with an increased risk of dementia. \u201cThe available evidence does not suggest that stopping drinking fully restores someone\u2019s dementia risk to that of a person who never drank heavily,\u201d Carr said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alcohol and the heart<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

But wait, isn\u2019t alcohol good for the\u00a0heart\u00a0\u2014 the leading killer of men and women worldwide? It is true that many studies have found a \u201cJ\u201d shaped relationship between booze and heart health which today\u2019s science has yet to disprove.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Low-to-moderate alcohol consumption \u2014 the small flatter part of the \u201cJ\u201d \u2014 has a slightly positive impact on heart health, according to those studies. As the number of drinks per day rises, however, so does the risk, traveling all the way up the straight line of the \u201cJ.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot only does the risk goes up with consumption, but the apparent protective effects on the heart basically disappear in people who also engage in heavy, episodic drinking,\u201d Carr said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 2023 study found as little as\u00a0one alcoholic drink a day\u00a0increased\u00a0systolic blood pressure\u00a0\u2014 the top number in a blood pressure reading. Drinking alcohol if you have high blood pressure nearly\u00a0doubles the risk\u00a0of serious liver damage, while drinking if you have a large belly or diabetes more than triples the risk, according to a February 2025 study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s enough evidence now that drinking may be more harmful than beneficial,\u201d said Freeman, the heart disease prevention cardiologist. \u201cMost of the professional societies tell people not to start drinking, drink as little as possible if they do drink, or\u00a0stop drinking altogether.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alcohol\u00a0can feel deeply entwined in our lives. A beer or glass of wine while catching up with friends. A cocktail at the end of a hard day. A round of toasts at a party. It\u2019s hard to believe that such seemingly innocent behavior reduces our immunity to infectious disease and raises the risk of cancer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12868],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-410071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12868"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410071"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":410074,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410071\/revisions\/410074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}