What Happens To Your Body When You Stop Drinking Alcohol
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Immediately after we stop drinking is rarely when we feel our best. But how long is it before we can expect to see benefits, instead of just suffering?
Timeline
After stopping drinking alcohol for…
- Seconds: the liver starts making progress filtering out toxins and sugars; ethanol starts to leave the system
- 1 hour: fatigue sets in as the body uses a lot of energy to metabolize and eliminate alcohol. However, sleep quality (if one goes to sleep now) is low because alcohol disrupts the brain patterns required for restful sleep
- 6–12 hours: the immune system starts recovering from the suppression caused by alcohol
- 24 hours: immune system is back to normal; withdrawal symptoms may occur in the case of heavy drinkers
- 3–5 days: resting blood pressure begins to drop, as stress levels decrease (alcohol may seem anxiolytic, but it is actually anxiogenic; it just masks its own effect in this regard). Also, because of insulin responses improving, appetite reduces. The liver, once it has finished dealing your last drinking session (if you used to drink all the time, it probably had a backlog to clear), can now begin to make repairs on itself.
- 1 week: skin will start looking better, as antidiuretic hormone levels neutralize, leading to a healthier maintenance of hydration
- 2 weeks: cognitive abilities improve as the brain begins to make progress in repairing itself. At the same time, kidneys start to heal.
- 3–4 weeks: the liver begins to regenerate in earnest. You may wonder what took it so long given the liver’s famous regenerative abilities, but in this case, the liver was also the organ that took the most damage from drinking, so its regeneration gets off to a slow start (in contrast, if the liver had “merely” suffered physical trauma, such as being shot, stabbed,
or eaten by eagles,it’d start regenerating vigorously as soon as the immediate wound-response had been tended to). Once it is able to pick up the pace though, overall health improves, as the liver can focus on breaking down other toxins. - 1–2 months: the heart is able to repair itself, and start to become stronger again (dependent on other lifestyle factors, of course).
- 3 months and more: bodily repairs continue (for example, the damage to the liver is often so severe that it can take quite a bit longer to recover completely, and repairs in the brain are always slow, for reasons beyond the scope of this article). Looking at the big picture, at this point we also see other benefits, such as reduced cancer risks.
In short… It’s never too soon to stop, but it’s also never too late, unless you are going to die in the next few days. So long as you’ll be in the land of the living for a few days yet, there’s time to enjoy the benefits of stopping.
Most importantly: the timeline for the most important repairs is not as long as many people might think, and that itself can be very motivating.
For more detail on much of the above, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- Can We Drink To Good Health?
- How To Reduce Or Quit Alcohol
- Addiction Myths That Are Hard To Quit
- How To Unfatty A Fatty Liver
Take care!
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Build Muscle (Healthily!)
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What Do You Have To Gain?
We have previously promised a three-part series about changing one’s weight:
- Losing weight (specifically, losing fat)
- Gaining weight (specifically, gaining muscle)
- Gaining weight (specifically, gaining fat)
And yes, that last one is also something that some people want/need to do (healthily!), and want/need help with that.
There will be, however, no need for a “losing muscle” article, because (even though sometimes a person might have some reason to want to do this), it’s really just a case of “those things we said for gaining muscle? Don’t do those and the muscle will atrophy naturally”.
Here’s the first part: How To Lose Weight (Healthily!)
While some people will want to lose fat, please do be aware that the association between weight loss and good health is not nearly so strong as the weight loss industry would have you believe:
And, while BMI is not a useful measure of health in general, it’s worth noting that over the age of 65, a BMI of 27 (which is in the high end of “overweight”, without being obese) is associated with the lowest all-cause mortality:
BMI and all-cause mortality in older adults: a meta-analysis
Body weight, muscle mass, and protein:
That BMI of 27, or whatever weight you might wish to be, ignores body composition. You’re probably aware that volume-for-volume, muscle weighs more than fat.
You’re also probably aware that if we’re not careful, we tend to lose muscle as we get older. This is known as age-related sarcopenia:
Protein, & Fighting Sarcopenia
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, our featured expert in the above article, recommends getting at least 1.6g of protein per kg of body weight per day (Americans, divide your weight in pounds by 2.2 to get your weight in kg).
So for example, if you weigh 165lb, that’s 75kg, that’s 1.6×75=120g of protein per day.
There is an upper limit to how much protein per day is healthy, and that limit is probably around 2g of protein per kg of body weight per day:
Protein: How Much Do We Need, Really?
You may be wondering: should we go for animal or plant protein? In which case, the short version is:
- If you only care about muscle growth, any complete sources of protein are fine
- If you care about your general health too, then avoiding red meat is best, but other common protein sources are all fine
- Unprocessed is (unsurprisingly) better than processed in either case
Longer version: Plant vs Animal Protein: Head to Head
What exercises are best for muscle-building?
Of course, different muscles require different exercises, but for all of them, resistance training is what builds muscle the most, and it’s pretty much impossible to build a lot of muscle otherwise.
Check out: Resistance Is Useful! (Especially As We Get Older)
Prepare to fail!
No, really, prepare to fail. Because while resistance training in general is good for maintaining strong muscles and bones, you will only gain muscle if your current muscle is not enough to do the exercise:
- If you do a heavy resistance exercise without undue difficulty, your muscles will say to each other “Good job, team! That was hard, but luckily we were strong enough; no changes necessary”.
- If you do a heavy resistance exercise to the point where you can no longer do it (called: training to failure), then your muscles will say to each other “Oof, what a task! What we’ve got here is clearly not enough, so we’ll have to add more muscle for next time”.
Safety note: training to failure comes with safety risks. If using free weights or weight machines, please do so under well-trained supervision. If doing it with bodyweight (e.g. press-ups until you can press no more) or resistance bands, please check with your doctor first to ensure this is safe for you.
You can also increase the effectiveness of your resistance training by doing it in a way that “confuses” your muscles, making it harder for them to adapt in the moment, and thus forcing them to adapt more in the long term (e.g. get bigger and stronger):
HIIT, But Make It HIRT: High Intensity Resistance Training
Make time for recovery
While many kinds of exercise can be done daily, exercise to build muscle(s) means at the very least resting that muscle (or muscle group) the next day.
For this reason, a lot of bodybuilders have for example a week’s schedule that might look like:
- Monday: Upper body training
- Wednesday: Lower body training
- Friday: Core strength training
…and rest on other days. This gives most muscles a full week of recovery, and every muscle at least 48 hours of recovery.
Note: bodybuilders, like children (who are also doing a lot of body-building, in their own way) need more sleep in order to allow for this recovery and growth to occur. Serious bodybuilders often aim for 12 hours sleep per day. This might be impractical, undesirable, or even impossible for some people, but it’s a factor to be borne in mind and not forgotten.
See also:
Overdone It? How To Speed Up Recovery After Exercise (According To Actual Science)
Anything else that can (safely and healthily) be done to promote muscle growth?
There are a lot of supplements on the market; some are healthy and helpful, other not so much. Here are some we’ve written about:
- What To Eat, Take, And Do Before A Workout
- Creatine: Very Different For Young & Old People
- Ginseng: Exercising With Less Soreness!
- Taurine’s Benefits For Heart Health And More
- Topping Up Testosterone? What To Consider
Take care!
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What’s the difference between vegan and vegetarian?
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What’s the difference? is a new editorial product that explains the similarities and differences between commonly confused health and medical terms, and why they matter.
Vegan and vegetarian diets are plant-based diets. Both include plant foods, such as fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains.
But there are important differences, and knowing what you can and can’t eat when it comes to a vegan and vegetarian diet can be confusing.
So, what’s the main difference?
Creative Cat Studio/Shutterstock What’s a vegan diet?
A vegan diet is an entirely plant-based diet. It doesn’t include any meat and animal products. So, no meat, poultry, fish, seafood, eggs, dairy or honey.
What’s a vegetarian diet?
A vegetarian diet is a plant-based diet that generally excludes meat, poultry, fish and seafood, but can include animal products. So, unlike a vegan diet, a vegetarian diet can include eggs, dairy and honey.
But you may be wondering why you’ve heard of vegetarians who eat fish, vegetarians who don’t eat eggs, vegetarians who don’t eat dairy, and even vegetarians who eat some meat. Well, it’s because there are variations on a vegetarian diet:
- a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet excludes meat, poultry, fish and seafood, but includes eggs, dairy and honey
- an ovo-vegetarian diet excludes meat, poultry, fish, seafood and dairy, but includes eggs and honey
- a lacto-vegetarian diet excludes meat, poultry, fish, seafood and eggs, but includes dairy and honey
- a pescatarian diet excludes meat and poultry, but includes eggs, dairy, honey, fish and seafood
- a flexitarian, or semi-vegetarian diet, includes eggs, dairy and honey and may include small amounts of meat, poultry, fish and seafood.
Are these diets healthy?
A 2023 review looked at the health effects of vegetarian and vegan diets from two types of study.
Observational studies followed people over the years to see how their diets were linked to their health. In these studies, eating a vegetarian diet was associated with a lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease (such as heart disease or a stroke), diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), dementia and cancer.
For example, in a study of 44,561 participants, the risk of heart disease was 32% lower in vegetarians than non-vegetarians after an average follow-up of nearly 12 years.
Further evidence came from randomised controlled trials. These instruct study participants to eat a specific diet for a specific period of time and monitor their health throughout. These studies showed eating a vegetarian or vegan diet led to reductions in weight, blood pressure, and levels of unhealthy cholesterol.
For example, one analysis combined data from seven randomised controlled trials. This so-called meta-analysis included data from 311 participants. It showed eating a vegetarian diet was associated with a systolic blood pressure (the first number in your blood pressure reading) an average 5 mmHg lower compared with non-vegetarian diets.
It seems vegetarian diets are more likely to be healthier, across a number of measures.
For example, a 2022 meta-analysis combined the results of several observational studies. It concluded a vegetarian diet, rather than vegan diet, was recommended to prevent heart disease.
There is also evidence vegans are more likely to have bone fractures than vegetarians. This could be partly due to a lower body-mass index and a lower intake of nutrients such as calcium, vitamin D and protein.
But it can be about more than just food
Many vegans, where possible, do not use products that directly or indirectly involve using animals.
So vegans would not wear leather, wool or silk clothing, for example. And they would not use soaps or candles made from beeswax, or use products tested on animals.
The motivation for following a vegan or vegetarian diet can vary from person to person. Common motivations include health, environmental, ethical, religious or economic reasons.
And for many people who follow a vegan or vegetarian diet, this forms a central part of their identity.
More than a diet: veganism can form part of someone’s identity. Shutterstock So, should I adopt a vegan or vegetarian diet?
If you are thinking about a vegan or vegetarian diet, here are some things to consider:
- eating more plant foods does not automatically mean you are eating a healthier diet. Hot chips, biscuits and soft drinks can all be vegan or vegetarian foods. And many plant-based alternatives, such as plant-based sausages, can be high in added salt
- meeting the nutrient intake targets for vitamin B12, iron, calcium, and iodine requires more careful planning while on a vegan or vegetarian diet. This is because meat, seafood and animal products are good sources of these vitamins and minerals
- eating a plant-based diet doesn’t necessarily mean excluding all meat and animal products. A healthy flexitarian diet prioritises eating more whole plant-foods, such as vegetables and beans, and less processed meat, such as bacon and sausages
- the Australian Dietary Guidelines recommend eating a wide variety of foods from the five food groups (fruit, vegetables, cereals, lean meat and/or their alternatives and reduced-fat dairy products and/or their alternatives). So if you are eating animal products, choose lean, reduced-fat meats and dairy products and limit processed meats.
Katherine Livingstone, NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition, Deakin University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Thai Green Curry With Crispy Tofu Balls
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Diversity is key here, with a wide range of mostly plants, offering an even wider range of phytochemical benefits:
You will need
- 7 oz firm tofu
- 1 oz cashew nuts (don’t soak them)
- 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 4 scallions, sliced
- 7 oz mangetout
- 7 oz fermented red cabbage (i.e., from a jar)
- 1 cup coconut milk
- Juice of ½ lime
- 2 tsp light soy sauce
- 1 handful fresh cilantro, or if you have the “cilantro tastes like soap” gene, then parsley
- 1 handful fresh basil
- 1 green chili, chopped (multiply per heat preference)
- 1″ piece fresh ginger, roughly chopped
- ¼ bulb garlic, crushed
- 1 tsp red chili flakes
- 1 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
- ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
- Avocado oil for frying
- Recommended, to serve: lime wedges
- Recommended, to serve: your carbohydrate of choice, such as soba noodles or perhaps our Tasty Versatile Rice.
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Heat the oven to 350℉ / 180℃, and bake the cashews on a baking tray for about 8 minutes until lightly toasted. Remove from the oven and allow to cool a little.
2) Combine the nuts, tofu, nutritional yeast, turmeric, and scallions in a food processor, and process until the ingredients begin to clump together. Shape into about 20 small balls.
3) Heat some oil in a skillet and fry the tofu balls, jiggling frequently to get all sides; it should take about 5 minutes to see them lightly browned. Set aside.
4) Combine the coconut milk, lime juice, soy sauce, cilantro/parsley, basil, scallions, green chili, ginger, garlic, and MSG/salt in a high-speed blender, and blend until a smooth liquid.
5) Transfer the liquid to a saucepan, and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat, add the mangetout, and simmer for about 5 minutes to reduce slightly. Stir in the red chili flakes and black pepper.
6) Serve with your preferred carbohydrate, adding the fermented red cabbage and the crispy tofu balls you set aside, along with any garnish you might like to add.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Capsaicin For Weight Loss And Against Inflammation
- Ginger Does A Lot More Than You Think
- Why Curcumin (Turmeric) Is Worth Its Weight In Gold
- The Many Health Benefits Of Garlic
- Black Pepper’s Impressive Anti-Cancer Arsenal (And More)
- Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)
- What’s Your Plant Diversity Score? ← a score of 8.25 for this dish, not counting whatever carbs you might add. Remember, herbs/spices* count for ¼ of a point each!
*but not MSG or salt, as while they may in culinary terms get lumped in with spices, they are of course not plants. Nor is nutritional yeast (nor any other yeast, for that matter). However, mushrooms (not seen in this recipe, though to be honest they would be a respectable addition) would get included for a whole point per mushroom type, since while they are not technically plants but fungi, the nutritional profile is plantlike.
Take care!
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The Sprout Book – by Doug Evans
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Sprouting seeds are more nutritious than most people think, and “seeds” is also a much broader category than people think. Beyond even chia and sunflower and such, this book bids us remember that onions do not just appear on supermarket shelves fully formed (to give just one example of many); most plants come from seeds and of those, most can be usefully sprouted.
The author, most well-known for his tech companies, here is selling us a very low-tech health kick with very little profit to be found except for our health. By sprouting seeds of many kinds at home, we can enjoy powerful superfoods that are not only better than, but also cheaper than, most supplements.
Nor are the benefits of sprouting things marginal; we’re not talking about a 1–10% increase in bioavailable so much as what’s often a 100–1000% increase.
After explaining the science and giving a primer on sprouting things for oneself, there is a wide selection of recipes, but the biggest benefit of the book is in just getting the reader up-and-running with at-home sprouting.
Bottom line: if you like the idea of letting food be your medicine and even like the idea of essentially growing your own food with zero gardening skills, then this is an excellent book for you.
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Immunity – by Dr. William Paul
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This book gives a very person-centric (i.e., focuses on the contributions of named individuals) overview of advances in the field of immunology—up to its publication date in 2015. So, it’s not cutting edge, but it is very good at laying the groundwork for understanding more recent advances that occur as time goes by. After all, immunology is a field that never stands still.
We get a good grounding in how our immune system works (and how it doesn’t), the constant arms race between pathogens and immune responses, and the complexities of autoimmune disorders and—which is functionally in an overlapping category of disease—cancer. And, what advances we can expect soon to address those things.
Given the book was published 8 years ago, how did it measure up? Did we get those advances? Well, for the mostpart yes, we have! Some are still works in progress. But, we’ve also had obvious extra immunological threats in years since, which have also resulted in other advances along the way!
If the book has a downside, it’s that sometimes the author can be a little too person-centric. It’s engaging to focus on human characters, and helps us bring information to life; name-dropping to excess, along with awards won, can sometimes feel a little like the book was co-authored by Tahani Al-Jamil.
Nevertheless, it certainly does keep the book from getting too dry!
Bottom line: this book is a great overview of immunology and immunological research, for anyone who wants to understand these things better.
Click here to check out Immunity, and boost your knowledge of yours!
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The Complete Anti-Inflammatory Diet for Beginners – by Dorothy Calimeris and Lulu Cook
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First, about the authors: notwithstanding the names, Calimeris is the cook, and Cook is the nutritionist (and an RDN at that).
As for the book: we get a good primer on the science of inflammation, what it is, why it happens, what things are known to cause/trigger it, and what things are known to fight it. They do also go outside of nutrition a bit for this, speaking briefly on other lifestyle factors too, but the main focus is of course nutrition.
As for the recipes: while distinctly plants-forward (as one might expect of an anti-inflammatory eating book), it’s not outright vegan or even vegetarian, indeed, in the category of main dishes, there are sections for:
- Vegetarian and vegan
- Fish and shellfish
- Poultry and meat
…as well as, before and after those, sections for breakfast and brunch and snacks and sweets. As well as a not-to-be-underestimated section, for sauces, condiments, and dressings. This is important, because those are quite often the most inflammatory parts of an otherwise healthy meal! So being able to make anti-inflammatory versions is a real boon.
The recipes are mostly not illustrated, but the steps are very clearly described and easy to follow.
Bottom line: if inflammation is currently on your to-tackle list, this book will be an excellent companion in the kitchen.
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