Question: If you have a bottle of wine 500ml every day, what can happen? What is the average age of a persons life?

Suzi Gage answered on 14 Jun 2011:

Hi @livivampire
I hope this is a hypothetical question!!!!
Firstly, it depends on whether you’re a child or an adult. While your brain and body is still developing, a lot of alcohol is a really bad idea.
Even for an adult, this is more alcohol per day than is recommended. If you drink too much alcohol it can damage your liver very badly. In fact, there is a list of the negative effects of drinking on a factsheet, taken from http://www.drinkaware.co.uk (a website giving advice about alcohol). I’ve copied and pasted it in here for your information.

The short term health risks of alcohol include:

• Anxiety
• Sexual difficulties such as impotence
• Impaired judgement leading to accidents and injuries
• Slowed breathing and heartbeat
• Loss of consciousness
• Suffocation through choking on your own vomit (aspiration)
• Potentially fatal poisoning

Drinking heavily also increases your calorie intake, and it is frequently associated with obesity. This in turn leads to increased health risks. Adding 3 or 4 units per day to your usual diet would lead to an increase in weight of around 4lbs in four weeks.

The good news is that the short term effects of drinking are reversible. When you reduce your drinking, the symptoms improve. 

In the long term, alcohol can contribute to a variety of problems, including damage to an unborn child, liver disease, osteoporosis (thinning of the bones), pancreatitis, stomach ulcers, infertility, heart disease, raised blood pressure, stroke, dementia and brain damage. 

It can also lead to an increased risk of a variety of cancers, particularly breast cancer and cancer of the gullet. It is also frequently associated with mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety.