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Hey , listen , do you actually think that the drink that you're drinking is harmless ? Think again , because beneath that cool , refreshing exterior lies a secret disruptor known as allostasis . It is shaping your health in ways that you've never imagined .
Today we are diving deep into the science and we're going into the untold story of your drink and the silent battle raging within your body . Discover why what you're sipping on might be more dangerous than you have ever thought . You will not want to miss today's video .
So the idea of homeostasis in a nutshell states that the human body has one main function To maintain internal constancy .
The idea was first formulated in the middle of the 19th century by French scientist Claude Bernard In his famous words all of the vital mechanisms have always one goal To maintain the uniformity of the conditions of life in the internal environment . Now , the way that this happens is through feedback mechanisms .
When one of our body's internal parameters deviated from a predetermined point , this information is fed back to a compensatory mechanism that restores the parameter to its original value . Two examples of homeostatic mechanisms are our body's internal temperature and pH control .
Now , regardless of the outside temperature , we maintain a near constant internal temperature of around 37 degrees Celsius . Similarly , with pH which hovers around 7.4 , regardless of our food consumption or activity levels . Now the homeostatic model of the human body has come to dominate medicine , and for good reason .
Firstly , it's been wildly successful in understanding and treating various diseases and , secondly , it's practical . For example , you have your blood taken , some of the values deviate from a recommended optimum or acceptable range , and then your doctor prescribes the medication and the values then return to their normal levels . End of story .
Or is it Now as successful as the theory of homeostasis has been ? It's easy to see that there has to be just a little bit more to it than this . Now , allostasis is a newer concept that is inspired , at least partially , by the theory of evolution . You've heard of adaptation and survival of the fittest as key concepts in biological evolution .
Well , this is the kind of worldview that allostasis takes . It views health and human survival more in terms of responsiveness and adaptive fluctuations to an ever-changing environment , in other words , as the environment changes , so too must the human body , and key to this process is the brain .
The brain is the command and control center , which takes stock of changes as well as predicts changes in the environment . It then sends the necessary signals to various organs and tissues . The changes that take place within each of these body systems deviate from classical homeostasis , but they all mesh together to produce an adaptive response .
The classic example is the fight-or-flight phenomenon . In response to perceived danger , our blood pressure , heart rate , breathing , as well as the release of hormones like cortisol and adrenaline are all dramatically affected for a short period of time . And all of these changes take us far from our normal relaxed homeostatic levels .
But without them we would not be able to survive our ever-changing , often deadly environment . Now the problem with allostatic mechanisms is that they come at a cost . For example , the fight-or-flight response is a very costly proposition for our body . You can only keep it for a limited period of time before eventually becoming weak and sick .
Researchers call this cost-allostatic load , and it is imposed on us either by external demands from our environment or from malfunctioning systems within our body . So when these demands become chronic , our body eventually adapts a new set of equilibria , it learns to operate within a different set of parameters . Its state has now become allostatic instead of homeostatic .
Now , by this point you've probably connected the dots and know where this discussion is headed . See , alcohol is a toxin , a light soluble molecule that penetrates most tissues in our body , including the brain , because of how widely it is diffused and how many system it affects . Alcohol taxes our body like few other substances .
Now , in the beginning we drink largely because alcohol artificially activates our reward system . We drink because we like it . Over time , heavy consumption forces our body to respond to this evolutionary novel challenge . It forces it to settle into a prolonged allostatic state .
Now the brain reward system by now has reset at a new point where alcohol hardly provides us with any reward at all . So at this point we drink mainly to avoid the pain of withdrawal . Now , at the molecular level , various neurotransmitter systems have now become chronically dysregulated and reset at new equilibria .
These include GABA , glutamate , dopamine , endogenous opioids and serotonin . But there are key differences between our body being relaxed into a homeostatic state and being forced by alcohol into a chronic allostatic state . For starters , it's the cost our body is paying to achieve this allostatic load . Our body is permanently stressed .
The second difference is that at its allostatic state , the body is basically used up its reserves , so it's maxed out its adaptive potential and doesn't have anything left when another environmental stress apart from alcohol comes its way . See at its core . This is why heavy drinkers are such fragile creatures .
It's why they're so prone to breakdowns , mood disorders , infections , diseases , accidents , you name it . What's ironic is that most drinkers have deceived themselves into believing that alcohol is actually giving them strength , that it's a support that they can lean on to get through the difficulties of life .
And in reality alcohol is sapping away most of their body's natural coping systems , in the process setting them up for massive failure . See allostasis also nicely explains why stopping drinking , removing alcohol from the equation , can be such a painful experience .
The body has at this point been forced into its new allostatic equilibria , and removing alcohol from the system literally means dysregulation . As counterintuitive as this may seem , removing the toxin from your system will now equal stress , but I need to mention that it's temporarily . The body eventually recalibrates and relaxes back into its normal homeostatic state .
The same general points are applied to other addictive drugs , be they nicotine , cocaine , heroin or whatever . The allostatic trajectory and eventual allostatic state will differ from drug to drug , but the idea is the same , so the quicker you stop drinking , the better . 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 .