Although everyone knows that drinking alcohol is harmful to the body, especially the fragile stomach, we never thought that it can cause gastric bleeding. Yes, alcohol is so destructive. Recently, there was another patient in the hospital who suffered from gastric bleeding due to

Although everyone knows that drinking alcohol is harmful to the body, especially the fragile stomach, we never thought that it can cause gastric bleeding. Yes, alcohol is so destructive. Recently, there was another patient in the hospital who suffered from gastric bleeding due to excessive drinking. Why is there such a serious problem?

How does wine damage the stomach?

The main component of alcohol is ethanol. After people drink alcohol, ethanol is first retained in the stomach and comes into direct contact with the gastric mucosa. Normal gastric mucosa surface epithelial cells and gastric pits are clearly visible and evenly distributed. However, alcohol can cause the mucosa to become thinner, dissolve mucus and biofilm , leading to mucosal thinning, mucosal epithelial cell necrosis and shedding, and microvascular endothelial damage. , embolism , tissue ischemia, hypoxia and necrosis, thereby causing gastric mucosal erosion or ulcer formation, inducing gastroduodenal mucosal damage and related gastric diseases, which are often called alcoholic gastritis in medicine.

The harm caused by alcoholic gastropathy is: it is easy to cause erosive gastritis and gastrointestinal bleeding; patients who take non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs at the same time are accompanied by alcoholic gastric disease and the damage is aggravated; portal hypertension is accompanied by Patients with alcoholic gastropathy will suffer more serious damage; elderly people suffering from alcoholic gastropathy will have more serious gastric mucosal damage.

In clinical gastroscopic observation, it is often found that acute heavy alcoholics have mucosal bleeding tendencies or erosion, while long-term drinkers are often accompanied by chronic superficial or atrophic gastritis.

In addition, long-term heavy drinking may easily lead to gastric acid deficiency and allow bacteria to multiply, which will promote the synthesis of carcinogens nitrite amines, which may lead to gastric cancer .

How to prevent alcohol from harming the stomach?

Alcohol causes so much harm to the stomach, so how can we eliminate or reduce these harms? There are five main points to prevent alcohol from damaging your stomach.

⑴ Don’t drink alcohol to completely avoid stomach damage from alcohol. This is the most ideal state for prevention.

⑵ Drink less alcohol and low-alcohol alcohol. On some occasions where you have to drink, you should reduce the frequency of drinking and try to drink wine with a content of less than 20 degrees, such as red wine.

⑶ Pay attention to the temperature of the wine and drink less cold beer. The temperature of the wine is also very important. Beer should be controlled at about 12℃~15℃, and liquor is generally suitable at 20℃~30℃, so as not to cause too much irritation to the stomach.

⑷ Take gastric mucosal protective agent after drinking alcohol to reduce the damage of alcohol. Common gastric mucosal protective agents include: sucralfate , bismuth potassium citrate granules, bismuth pectin , teprenone, giffarate, etc. A large number of studies have proven that after using gastric mucosal protectants, alcohol will cause much less damage to the stomach.

⑸ After drinking alcohol, you can drink more water or eat some hangover food. Drinking a lot of water after drinking can dilute the alcohol concentration and make it quickly excreted from the body; you can also eat some hangover foods, such as fresh grapes and strawberries , which can reduce the ethanol concentration in the body. You can also drink some mung bean soup and milk to relieve hangover.

A small drink will make you happy, but a big drink will harm your body. I would like to warn all wine lovers that for the sake of stomach health, it is better to drink less alcohol.

I am Dr. Xin from the gastroenterology department of Yantai . I am willing to use my spare time to help friends with gastrointestinal health problems. I will take the time to answer your questions one by one. You are welcome to send a private message or leave a message in the comment area.