Giving up alcohol—for even just one month—has been shown to produce positive changes in people’s health. Not only can you make serious progress toward increasing your chances of weight loss after quitting alcohol, but the benefits of quitting alcohol also extend beyond losing weight. It can also include lowering your cancer risk, boosting your heart health, and even having better sex.
Reduced risk of diabetes and liver disease
A recent experiment had some interesting results. A group of people whose drinking ranged from eight to 64 12-ounce bottles of beer per week took a short-term break from alcohol. Ten people gave up the booze for five weeks. Another four didn’t. Doctors tested their blood before and after, and discovered that the non drinkers liver fat—a predictor of liver damage—dropped 15 to 20 percent and their blood glucose levels—a key factor in diabetes—also dropped by an average of 16 percent!
Improved digestion
Even in relatively small doses, alcohol can negatively affect digestion by altering the stomach’s secretion of gastric acid as well as its gastric motility: the ability of your stomach muscles to break down ingested food. When these functions are impaired, your digestion suffers. Studies have shown that pairing alcohol with a meal can slow down digestion while the overproduction of gastric acid can irritate the stomach.
Better hydration.
If you’re used to having a few bottles of beer or glasses of wine at home each night, you might want to stop drinking and replace the ritual with flavored waters you make yourself. Also, alcohol is a diuretic, meaning it flushes your body of water through urine. Less alcohol means your body can retain the right amount of water for proper hydration and electrolyte balance.
Healthier skin.
Alcohol is a diuretic, which leeches fluids from your body. (Notice how It causes you to pee more than you otherwise would.) But unlike tea and coffee, which are also diuretics, alcohol decreases the body’s production of the antidiuretic hormone that helps the body reabsorb water. That’ll show up on your face. After just a few days of abstinence, you’ll notice that your skin looks and feels more hydrated, and skin problems like dandruff, eczema or rosacea may also improve.
Reduced risk of cancer.
According to the National Cancer Institute, drinking booze has been linked to an increased risk for cancers of the mouth, liver, breast, colon, and rectum—and the risk increases the more you drink. Replacing alcohol with snacks and meals high in fibrous fruits, veggies and legumes. In a 2015 study, scientists found that swapping a meat-heavy Western diet for a high-fiber one increased healthy, protective gut bacteria and lowered colon cancer biomarkers—in just two weeks!
You may have better sex.
While a glass or two of wine or a few cocktails may seem to set the mood, it’s actually a depressant, which is the last thing you want in the bedroom. It can cause havoc with a man’s ability to get and keep an erection, which can dampen the libido for women as well. And while all alcohol affects the liver’s ability to get rid of excess estrogen, beer contains phytoestrogens—plant-derived estrogens that dampen virility and fertility. Taxing the liver with alcohol can make it less effective at metabolizing hormones, which can convert androgens into estrogens, resulting in a diminished sex drive.
These are only a few of the benefits to be enjoyed from quitting alcohol. Maybe now that you know, you can add cutting down on alcohol to your list of New Years Resolutions.
