How bad is booze anyway? 6 crazy facts about drinking

Drinking moderately comes with a wealth of health benefits, says Sam Zakhari, senior vice president of the Distilled Spirits Council and former director of the Division of Metabolism and Health Effects at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Here’s what you’ll want to know about how alcohol affects you when you’re drinking in moderation — and what happens when you wake up knowing that last cocktail was definitely not a good idea.

DailyBurn: How many calories are in your cocktail?

So, here are six things to know about drinking before you go out tonight:

1. You’re drinking more than you think.

A study from Cancer Research UK suggests that the average British adult might drink around 3,740 calories of beer or 3,750 calories of alcohol at parties over the holiday season.

Even though 27% of the 18- to 24-year-olds and 33% of the 25- to 34-year-olds surveyed said they had been known to skip a meal to “make room” for drinking (Note: not a good idea!), they still ended up imbibing so much that it would have taken seven hours of jogging to work off all that seasonal cheer.

“Then there’s the fact that relying on alcohol to help you sleep can lead to problems down the road. What tends to happen is that alcohol works less and less well as a sleep aid over time, so we respond by increasing the amount we are drinking,” says Sack.

6. Even one episode of binge drinking can harm your health.

Here’s an excellent reason to keep yourself in check: Overdoing it even once — yup, you read that right — can affect your health in freaky ways, says research in the journal PLOS ONE.

Binge drinking is “a pattern of drinking that brings blood alcohol concentration (BAC) levels to 0.08,” according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. That’s about four or more drinks for women and five or more drinks for men within about two hours.

In the study, researchers discovered binge drinkers had bacterial DNA in their bloodstreams, which was a sign bacteria had leaked out from the gut.

They also discovered elevated endotoxin presence in the blood, which meant toxins had been released from cells after cell walls were damaged by booze. The consequences: These toxins could lead to fever, tissue destruction and inflammation, which is tied to a host of health problems from cancer to depression.

It sounds scary, but avoiding these issues is pretty simple if you follow Zakhari’s alcohol mantra: “It’s all about moderation.”

CNN