Not feeling well today? Maybe the alcohol you had last night flared up your IBS symptoms. Maybe you didn’t know that alcohol bothers people with IBS. This week’s blog is about that.
Alcohol plays a large role in our culture. In fact, it plays a huge role in many other cultures too. Plenty of people go to happy hour to “blow off steam” and to socialize. Alcohol plays a big role in social gatherings and events, especially on holidays including New Year’s Eve.
Even homebodies drink to ease their stress, make a nice cocktail at dinner, or pair a fine wine to accompany their meal. However, alcohol is a digestive irritant. The question is complicated. Should a person with chronic digestive health disorder like irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS, drink alcohol?
When deciding whether or not you can enjoy a few drinks, consider how alcohol affects your IBS symptoms. Most people with IBS avoid alcohol altogether, so make an informed decision after reading this week’s blog of pros and cons of alcohol consumption. What will you decide?
How alcohol affects the digestive system:
Alcohol affects the productivity and capabilities of the digestive system in many ways. Heavy alcohol use can cause major damage to the organs in the digestive system including the lining of the tissue in the digestive tract. Although it is obvious that heavy alcohol use affects the body, moderate and occasional alcohol use also has a negative affect on digestive.
Alcohol weakens the strength of the esophageal sphincter. This is the part of the body that food and stomach acids out of the esophagus. If alcohol weakens the strength of the esophageal sphincter, it can lead to a person having an issue called acid reflux.
In the stomach, there is acid secretion. Alcohol can cause an increase in the stomach secretion which slows down the emptying of the stomach. This leads people to feel nausea and irritation. In higher volume, people can experience episodes of vomiting.
The problem with alcohol for the small intestine, alcohol can reduce the amount of nutrients absorbed. The malabsorption, mostly of carbohydrates, contributes to issues with gas and diarrhea. In the large intestine, these substances interact with the bacteria. Alcohol may also speed up the movement of the muscles in the large intestine. This contributes to the risk of diarrhea.
How much is too much?
The amount of alcohol affects the amount effects on your digestive system. The U.S. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Dietary Guidelines report that women should not have more than one drink and men should not have more than two drinks a day if they want to drink moderately. For people over 65 years-old, no more than one drink a day should be consumed.
The dietary guidelines define binge drinking as having four or more drinks at one time if you are a female and five or more drinks if you are a male. Heavy drinking is defined as eight or more drinks in a week if you are a female and 15 or more drinks a week if you are a male.
166 women, who were diagnosed as having IBS, ages 18 to 48 years-old participated in study regarding drinks and next-day digestive symptoms. The group of women that had IBS had different symptoms than a group of 48 women that did not have an IBS diagnosis.
Women with IBS that engaged in binge drinking were more likely to experience stomach pain, diarrhea, nausea, and indigestion the following day. It was not clear that these symptoms were felt after moderate or light drinking. The association between drinking and next-day symptoms was more common in women with diarrhea-prominent IBS rather than women who had constipation-prominent IBS or mixed-type IBS.
We hope you gathered up more information to help you decide whether or not you are okay to drink alcohol or not. Of course, do not drink alcohol if you are pregnant, have a history of alcohol dependency, are under 21 years-old, or are taking medications that should not be mixed with alcohol. Consult your gastroenterologist before drinking alcohol.
Happy New Years!
Staff Writer