THIS Is How Alcohol Destroys Your Bones

Every sip of alcohol is silently chipping away at the very foundation of your body , your bones . We relish the relaxation and joy from our favorite beverages . Beneath the surface , a war rages . Today we pull back the curtain on the alarming relationship between the drinking your hand and the strength of your skeleton .

Are you unknowingly compromising your bones integrity ? And trust me , by the end of the video I'm going to talk to you about steps to take to reverse this damage . So please stick around to the very end of this video . So adult humans have a total of just over 200 bones .

Selectively , and including other tissues like cartilagin ligaments , these bones make up our skeleton . The skeleton is what supports and protects our bodies or the organs . It also allows us to move around and interact with our environment pretty rapidly . But the actual function of bones goes beyond just structural support .

The vast majority of our blood cells are actually produced inside the bone marrow . This is the soft sponge like material in the center , as well as absorbing heavy metals such as lead and mercury from the blood . Now an important aspect of normal bone functioning is so called bone remodeling .

This refers to a process whereby old bone is broken down and replaced by new bone . The bone is broken down by specialist cells called osteoclasts and new bone is formed by another type of cells called osteoblasts . About 10% of our bone mass is remodeled in this way every single year .

The first evidence that alcohol is not particularly friendly on our bones came in the mid 1960s , just when researchers studying cadavers noticed that those of deceased alcoholics had markedly reduced bone mass . In the decades that followed , other researchers replicated and elaborated on these findings .

They found that certain bones , like those of the vertebral column and hip , were especially susceptible to this reduction in mass . So it became apparent that alcohol does something to the bones that interferes with their normal functioning . Remember the osteoblasts that we just mentioned , whoa ? These are the cells responsible for forming new bones during remodeling .

Well , it turns out that alcohol directly inhibits the formation of the cells , disrupts their growth and also interferes with their DNA synthesis . So , with less osteoblasts in action , the result is insufficient formation of new bone to replace what is lost during remodeling , leading to decreased lost bone mass .

Apart from this direct effect on the osteoblasts , scientists suspect that ethanol impacts bone health through a number of indirect mechanisms . For example , poor nutrition and nutrient absorption , which is very common in heavy drinkers , will also negatively affect bone metabolism . Similarly for oxidative stress and liver disease , which are all also common in heavy drinkers .

And then , of course , there's a vitamin D . So let's look at vitamin D deficiency . So vitamin D is a critically important molecule for human health . Receptors for this vitamin are widely distributed throughout the human body and in recent years , scientists have realized have realized that chronic deficiency probably contributes to a stunning array of human disease .

This includes increased risk of cardiovascular disease , cancer , autoimmune conditions , as well as mood disorders like depression . Vitamin D is also necessary for healthy bones .

Calcium is a major component of bones and without vitamin D , the bones cannot sufficiently absorb the calcium and , along with various other nutritional deficiencies , heavy drinkers also tend to be severely deficient in vitamin D . This is typically so low that it falls well below the minimum recommended levels .

Scientists aren't exactly sure why this is so , but they suspect that it's a combination of various factors , including liver dysfunction , poor diet and inadequate exposure to sunlight . Now , whatever the reason , they know that this chronic vitamin D deficiency impacts bone health and they have found a very straightforward way to quantify this effect .

We will come to this shortly , but it's very interesting . But first I want us to have another quick look at another aspect of bone health . Earlier on , we looked at diminished bone mass in heavy drinkers . Now this in and of itself is an important indication of bone health , but another important parameter is the so called bone mineral density , or BMD .

This is a measure of the strength and density of your bones and probably the single most important marker of your overall bone health . Low BMD is the hallmark of a common condition called osteoporosis . This is literally the Greek term meaning porous bones .

Osteoporosis becomes more common with age , in both sexes , and especially in women after the menopause , but across the board , osteoporosis rates have been rising , making this condition one of the top health concerns in industrialized societies . About 10% of people over the age of 50 nowadays suffer from it .

Now , researchers have established that heavy , chronic drinking is one of the contributing factors to these increased osteoporosis rates . According to a recent meta-analysis , the risk is closely linked to increased alcohol consumption . Those who drink half to one drink a day have a 38% higher chance of developing osteoporosis compared to non-drinkers .

For those who consume more than two drinks a day , the risk rises by 63% . While osteoporosis has no visible symptoms per se , it increases the risk of a very unpleasant secondary effect Bone fractures .

A few years after the 1965 discovery that heavy drinking leads to bone loss , another researcher working in a Seattle hospital noted that heavy drinkers were dramatically predisposed to fractures Multiple fractures that had typically happened at different times and were in different stages of the healing process .

Now , more specifically , he noted that 62% of patients in his hospital who had three fractures or more were heavy drinkers . He actually called this battered alcoholic syndrome and proposed that a physician who spots these fractures should immediately suspect drinking problems . Now the fractures are actually most commonly located on the ribs .

Many of these will go unnoticed by the patient , only to be detected when they happen to have an x-ray , usually for one of the fractures that they actually do notice . So , depending on the study , the proportion of heavy drinkers with rib fractures is as high as 50% .

These people are also more prone to classical kinds of fractures , for example in the hip , and hip fractures can be particularly devastating , a major , life-altering event involving hospitalization , surgery or even hip replacement .

So all these heavy fractures are a combination of the bone damage accumulated over the years of heavy drinking , as well as the falls that other heavy drinkers are prone to , as well as the falls and other accidents that heavy drinkers are prone to . So remember the vitamin D deficiency that we mentioned earlier .

Well , it turns out that those drinkers with severe dimitimine D deficiency are at an especially high risk of fractures . Those with unhealthy eating habits and poor overall nutrition are more prone . Now , if you're still drinking and the video so far has left you a bit anxious or nervous , I would say that that's not so bad .

While it's never our intention to actually scare you when you scare tactics , the first step to change is self-awareness , and topics like bruise on your bones for one reason or another are almost completely absent from public discourse .

So , understandably , a lot of the stuff that we've just covered might come as a bit of a surprise , but now I want you to know this However much alcohol is damaged , or bones , a large part of the damage can be reversed when you free yourself from the alcohol trap , and I mean it's astonishingly fast .

Remember the impaired bone formation of a new bone that we saw earlier . Well , according to one study , only three weeks of abstinence were enough to bring markers of bone formation on par with a control group of non-drinkers .

So , aside from the obvious thing of stopping drinking , other steps that you can take to support your bones recovery include A Check your Vitamin D levels and supplement as required . B Consume a well-balanced diet rich in calcium . C . Exercise to the extent that you can . And D If you are smoking quit yesterday .

Thanks for checking out the Stop Drinking Podcast by SoberClear . If you want to learn more about how we work with people to help them stop drinking effortlessly , then make sure to visit wwwsoberclearcom .