Alcohol Abuse Can Result in Pneumonia
There are all kinds of alcoholic consumption in this world. In Europe, children drinking wine with their meals is usually considered the norm. Those who abuse their bodies with excessive alcohol consumption can easily end up with pneumonia.
The French Paradox is often promoted as justification for regularly drinking a moderate amount of alcoholic beverages, such as red wine. It is well known that red wine contains resveratrol and other antioxidants, which have been shown to improve your cardiovascular health.
The general advice is that if you are NOT currently a wine drinker, do NOT start. The reason being that the fine line between what is moderate and excessive drinking is very vague and hard to determine. Excessive drinkers experience reduced cardiovascular health.
How Alcohol Affects the Body
A recent Danish health study has shown that alcohol abusers have an increased risk of catching pneumonia. In this study, there were two types of alcohol abusers. One group regularly drinks excessive amounts of alcohol, or greater than 50 drinks for men and 35 for females per week. The other group goes on periodic alcoholic drinking binges.
Of course, alcoholics have more things to worry about than pneumonia. Fatal cirrhosis of the liver is the usual end result. Alcohol can, also, destroys brain cells. Teenagers in some cultures are now starting to drink several liters of cheap alcoholic beverages like soda pop every day, and are killing themselves in their early twenties from cirrhosis.
References:
- Alcohol drinking and risk of subsequent hospitalisation with pneumonia.
Kornum JB, Due KM, Nørgaard M, ...
Eur Respir J. 2011 Jun 9. [Epub ahead of print]
PMID: 21659417
