Can Alcohol affect your skin? - Dr. Nischal K

Alcohol there is a lot of controversies. There are some people who say that small quantities are always beneficial like red wine is good to the heart . But in many the indulgence is after starting it. So when the indulgence happens there is a lot of negative effect on the health. Second aspect is as Indians the enzymes in the liver that are required to degrade this alcohol is not effective. We see a lot of cases of fatty liver and cirrhosis in India, when people are consuming alcohol. So leave alone skin, it can affect a lot of internal organs. Second, whatever is happening inside is seen inside. The skin is a mirror image of what is inside. So liver is a major organ in the body. When the function of the liver starts coming down, then definitely it affects the skin. The proeucution of a lot of proteins they start coming down. So that shows as fine lines, wrinkles, looseness of skin. Second aspect is whatever toxins that accumulate in the body that is not effectively cleared. So all those changes start getting exaggerated. Many at times we call it as monkey skin or very thin papery skin that happens when there is a lot of damage because of the alcohol . These changes starts when people starts consuming alcohol. Second aspect is that it is not that people only consume alcohol. Lot of times they eat a lot of junk food with that. So junk food will again cause a lot of damage. There is a lot of smoking that occurs. So all these things put together increases appearance of pigmentation and they increase the fine lines and wrinkles, they enhance skin sag and fourth it makes your skin much more dull. It is not that whoever drinks alcohol ends up in all these things. It depends on their body metabolism. These changes can happen either with very low dosages of alcohol or it can happen after binge alcohol or over a period of time it can happen. For whom how their body responds to alcohol can be predicted. But in general if you as if alcohol is good for skin or internal health, it is neither beneficial for your skin or health. So it is better not to take alcohol for enjoyment but there are ways of enjoying life in a healthy way.