During the New Year, social drinking is common, but don't overindulge.
Doctor's Reminder: With the Spring Festival approaching, people will have more opportunities for gatherings and social events, but alcohol consumption should be moderate. Patients with cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, or digestive system diseases must not overindulge.
With the Spring Festival just around the corner, unit dinners, year-end social gatherings, and meetings with friends are endless. As everyone gathers, toasts are exchanged, and alcohol becomes a bond connecting emotions. Some people often get drunk without even realizing it.
Hospital: Increase in Emergency Cases of Drunkenness
Recently, reporters learned from several hospitals in the urban area that a significant number of people have been sent to the emergency room for drinking too much.
On the evening of February 5th, the emergency room treated four consecutive cases of drunkenness, with two suffering from alcohol poisoning due to excessive drinking. On February 14th, a woman was sent to the emergency room after a traffic accident caused by drunk driving.
According to a nurse in the emergency department of the hospital, recently, the number of people admitted due to excessive drinking has increased, and they encounter drunk people almost every day. Some drunk drivers are directly sent by traffic police for blood alcohol content testing.
"During holidays like this, the number of 'drunken patients' increases," said Dr. Li Zhangping, deputy director of the emergency department at the First Affiliated Hospital. "Excessive drinking not only leads to alcohol poisoning and coma but can also damage the liver, nervous system, and digestive system. For middle-aged and elderly patients with high blood pressure or digestive diseases, the harm from excessive drinking is even greater. It's not just about being drunk; it can trigger cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and cause a series of injuries to the digestive system, such as the stomach and esophagus, leading to gastrointestinal bleeding and even life-threatening situations."
During festive celebrations, drinking should be moderate. The more it's a holiday, the more everyone should avoid binge drinking. In past years, during the Spring Festival, there has been an increase in emergency room patients with cerebral strokes and myocardial infarctions, which is related to the weather, physical fatigue, and excessive holiday drinking. Especially for patients with high blood pressure, they must not drink heavily and should pay attention to getting more rest and drinking more water.
Expert: Too Much Alcohol Harms Health and Hinders Affairs
"Vomiting in public," "severe headaches," "abdominal pain and diarrhea," "unconsciousness"... Reporters randomly interviewed several citizens who have frequent year-end social gatherings, and they listed their experiences after drinking too much.
Excessive drinking has many effects on the human body, starting with the physical impact. After drinking, ethanol in the blood is detoxified by the liver. Exceeding the liver's detoxification limit can lead to poisoning. Long-term excessive drinking can easily cause gastrointestinal dysfunction, gastrointestinal bleeding, and subsequent malnutrition, alcoholic liver disease, nervous system damage, myocarditis, and atrial fibrillation.
Many people think that beer has a low alcohol content, but in fact, excessive beer consumption is also harmful and increases the risk of gout. Dr. Hu reminded that alcohol can interact with many medications and affect treatment. For example, alcohol can enhance the effects of central nervous system depressants. Drinking even a small amount after taking antibiotics (such as cephalosporins and metronidazole) can lead to a state of drunkenness, or even shock and death.
"The impact of drinking on patients with high blood pressure is particularly significant." The effect of drinking on blood pressure is divided into acute and chronic effects.
The acute effect refers to the impact within a few hours after drinking. After drinking, blood vessels dilate and the mind relaxes, which can temporarily lower blood pressure. Some people say their blood pressure dropped after drinking, which is the reason. However, some people experience an accelerated heartbeat due to sympathetic nerve excitement after drinking, increasing the burden on the heart. This is especially true for patients with latent heart failure, who can easily develop overt heart failure. The chronic effect occurs several days after drinking and causes blood pressure to rise; the more one drinks, the higher the blood pressure.
The reason drinking raises blood pressure is generally believed to be that large meals at banquets involve high salt intake, and drinking promotes the secretion of various hormones that increase blood pressure, such as adrenocorticotropic hormone, adrenocortic hormone, and catecholamines. Therefore, people often see that heavy drinkers have a ruddy complexion, which is actually due to an increase in adrenocortic hormone.
Director Hu stated that if one drinks more than half a jin (250g) of baijiu (white liquor) daily, the risk of developing high blood pressure increases by 40%-50% compared to non-drinkers. Although modern medical research shows that red wine has a smaller effect on blood pressure, the daily amount must still be controlled within three liang (150g).
Drunkness: Ten Folk Remedies
Hu Haiyan believes that first, one should prepare before drinking, such as eating some food to line the stomach, to reduce the damage of alcohol to the gastrointestinal tract and liver. Fresh vegetables, fresh fish, lean meat, beans, and eggs are all good options.
To avoid a hangover, you can drink milk before drinking, or eat high-fat foods as soon as you start drinking. At banquets, there are often fruits, cold dishes like cucumber with vinegar, radish, celery, and meat. Cold or cool foods can neutralize the heat of alcohol and prevent hangovers.
"Eating more fruit after drinking also has a sobering effect," Dr. Hu introduced. Fruits commonly available in hotels after meals, such as watermelon, citrus, pears, water chestnuts, and raw lotus root slices, also have an auxiliary effect of sobering up. Eating 3 to 5 bananas raw after drinking can relieve drunkenness and quench thirst. Grape juice or 30ml of juice boiled with celery leaves, mixed with rice vinegar, can treat headaches, dizziness, and nausea after drinking. Chewing 30g of raisins or a few grapes after drinking can promote saliva production, quench thirst, and relieve drunkenness.
In addition, the doctor also recommended several folk remedies for sobering up:
1. Mung beans, red beans, and black beans, 50g each, plus 15g of licorice. Boil until soft and eat the beans and soup together to refresh the mind, sober up, and alleviate alcohol poisoning.
2. Radish for sobering up: Drink raw radish juice as tea, or shred radish, mix with an appropriate amount of rice vinegar and sugar, and eat. Folk remedies use radish pulp (made just before eating) with the skin on, juiced and mixed with honey, to treat loss of appetite caused by hangovers.
3. Mung beans for sobering up: 50g of mung beans, 10g of licorice, and an appropriate amount of brown sugar, decocted and taken, can sober up.
4. Winter melon soup for sobering up: Drink winter melon soup boiled with water, or some light vegetable soup, both of which have a sobering effect.
5. Vinegar and sugar: For general drunkenness, mix 40-50ml of vinegar with 10-20g of sugar and a small amount of boiling water. After the sugar dissolves, drink it at once to quickly sober up; for severe poisoning, it can be administered by灌服 (gavage).
6. Rice soup: Thick rice soup contains various sugars and vitamin B, which has the effect of detoxifying and sobering up; adding some sugar is even more effective.
7. Ginger: For nausea and vomiting after drunkenness, hold a small piece of ginger in the mouth to help sober up.
8. Two liang (100g) of cabbage root, five qian (15g) of hawthorn, decocted in water and taken orally.
9. Two liang (100g) of radish leaves, decocted in water and taken orally.
10. One qian (3g) of tea, two scallions, decocted in water and taken orally. Or add plum to boiling water, or a small amount of salt to tea for a better diuretic effect.