As Christmas approaches, many will be popping bottles of fizz, heating up mulled wine, and cracking open the Bailey’s. ‘Tis the season and all…
A tipple or three might seem harmless enough, but it turns out these could actually be doing more damage to your insides than you realise – and not just during the holidays.
You don’t have to be drinking to the point of black out every weekend to trigger an alcohol-related condition, like liver disease. According to research, the exact amount of booze you have to consume to cause irreversible damage to your liver is actually a lot less than you might think.
A study by UC San Fransisco found that 21 binge drinking sessions, over seven weeks (three binge sessions a week), is enough to cause symptoms of early-stage liver failure. This would equate to men drinking 12 pints of beer a week for seven weeks, and women consuming nine pints a week for seven weeks.
But even more worryingly, experts claim that ‘even relatively limited’ binge drinking can lead to disruptions in liver function, and ‘could potentially result in more severe forms of liver damage’.
Here’s a closer look at what really constitutes an alcohol binge and what drinking is really doing to your body…
How much alcohol is too much?
Binge drinking is defined as ‘drinking heavily over a short space of time’, and, for men, this means drinking more than eight units of alcohol in a single session. For women, it’s anything more than six units in a single session.
This is the equivalent of a man having four pints of ‘regular’ beer or three glasses of wine, or three pints/two 250ml glasses of wine for a woman.
The NHS advises men and women not to drink more than 14 units of alcohol a week on a regular basis. If you are drinking 14 units, these should be spread over three or more days, with several drink-free days interspersed.
14 units is equivalent to six pints of average-strength beer or 10 small glasses of lower-strength wine.
How much alcohol will damage your liver?
As Drink Aware explains, any time we consume alcohol, our liver has to break it down, but due to the toxicity of alcohol some of our liver cells die in the process. Our body needs a break from drinking to allow the liver to recover and make new cells.
Regular heavy drinking can impact our liver’s ability to do this and cause damage, leading to alcohol-related liver disease (ALD).
There are broadly thought to be three stages of ALD: Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (a build up of fat in the cells in the liver), Alcohol-related hepatitis (a potentially serious condition caused by heavy alcohol consumption over a longer period), and Cirrhosis (healthy liver tissue has been replaced permanently by damaged scar tissue).
The British Liver Trust explains that drinking more than four units of alcohol a day can lead to a build-up of fat in the liver.
However Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, and Alcohol-related hepatitis can both be reversible if they are caught early and the right steps are taken.
If you don’t stop drinking, you increase the risk of developing irreversible Cirrhosis.
As with anything, the exact amount of alcohol that triggers conditions such as this will vary between people, and other factors such as genetics and weight will have a role. But alcohol bingeing will play a significant part for many.
One particularly shocking study, published in the Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research journal in 2017 found that just 21 sessions of binge drinking over seven weeks (three binge sessions per week) was enough to cause symptoms of early-stage liver failure.
The study, by scientists at UC San Francisco, was conducted on mice and found that binge drinking repeatedly, even without alcohol dependence can cause fatty liver (an increase in triglycerides), trigger early stages of inflammation, and increase the levels of the enzyme CYP2E1, which is a major contributor to liver disease, and can activate procarcinogens.
‘We sometimes think of alcoholic liver damage as occurring after years of heavy drinking. However, we found that even a short period of what in humans would be considered excessive drinking resulted in liver dysfunction,’ said Frederic Hopf, PhD, the study’s senior researcher.
‘It is important to intervene early to counter the dangers associated with binge drinking habits.’
The lack of awareness around binge drinking is perhaps is why the UK has seen an alarming rise in the number of deaths from chronic liver disease, with the rate increasing five-fold since the 1970s.
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The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show that male deaths due to alcohol-related diseases rose 29% from 4,928 to 6,348 between 2016 and 2021. Over the same time period, the number of women who lost their life this way jumped 37% from 2,399 to 3,293 – the highest level since records began in 2001.
While it’s clear that more men die in this way, the data has sparked concern over the rate at which the number of deaths due to alcohol are increasing in women.
Experts have blamed the rise on an increase in alcohol advertising and marketing towards women, slamming bottomless brunches and phrases such as ‘wine O’clock’ for promoting and celebrating excessive alcohol consumption.
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