How the brain works. Part 2. The brain and alcohol

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

There are many articles on the Internet about how alcohol affects the body. At the same time, most of their authors are either clearly lying, or they only speak part of the truth. But, interestingly, in the end they all lead the reader to the same idea. You can't drink a lot, but you can drink in moderation and even healthy. And this is precisely the main lie, the meaning of which is to create conditions for the soldering of the population, which helps to keep this population under control.

Let's start with the basics. When alcohol, that is, ethyl alcohol with proteins, interacts, the so-called denaturation or destruction of protein molecules occurs. You can clearly see this process in this video.

Why has ethyl alcohol been used for many centuries to disinfect wounds and medical instruments? Because when ethyl alcohol molecules come into contact with the protein membranes of cells, the latter are destroyed, which causes the death of the cells themselves. Therefore, when the wound is wiped with alcohol, the cells of all bacteria and microorganisms that could cause infection are destroyed. At the same time, however, some of the cells of the tissues of the body also die, so we feel the effect of alcohol on the wound as painful, but this is insignificant damage compared to the consequences of a possible infection and the death of even more cells or even the whole organism.

But those who promote moderate consumption of alcohol, that is, promote the drinking of the population, argue that the concentration of alcohol in the blood when consumed in moderation is very small, so it allegedly cannot harm the cells. Moreover, the same authors, when describing the effects of alcohol on the brain and nervous system, do not forget to say that the onset of a euphoric state occurs due to the action of glutamate or glutamic acid, which is a very strong excitatory neurotransmitter. But where in the body suddenly appears this glutamic acid when drinking alcohol, they forget to tell. The trick is that glutamic acid in the body can only appear from the neurons themselves. No other cells produce it anymore. And its release occurs precisely because under the influence of alcohol, the outer shell of neurons begins to collapse, which leads to the release of glutamic acid into the blood and, as a result, causes a state of euphoria in a person consuming alcohol.

Another circumstance that makes a person consume alcohol is the fact that the oxidation of alcohol releases about twice as much energy as the oxidation of a glucose molecule. For the body, this is a kind of energy freebie, and at the level of instincts it tries to force its owner to provide him with this freebie.

But this freebie does not get to the body for free. In the process of decomposition of the ethyl alcohol molecule in the human body, acetaldehyde is released. This substance is much more active in biochemical terms and more toxic than ethyl alcohol. Acetaldehyde can cause psychotropic and toxic effects in doses 100-200 times lower than alcohol.

In other words, the main harm to the body is caused not so much by the molecules of ethyl alcohol itself as by the products of its decay in the form of acetaldehyde, which have hundreds of times greater destructive power. In this case, one molecule of acetaldehyde is obtained from each molecule of ethyl alcohol in the process of its decomposition. We are saved from instant death by the fact that the process of alcohol decomposition occurs mainly in the liver cells, where the resulting acetaldehyde almost immediately enters into the following reaction, forming acetic acid and water. But due to the high toxicity of acetaldehyde, some of the liver cells die, so some of it still enters the bloodstream and is carried throughout the body, including entering the brain.

Another lie is that since the concentration of alcohol or the same acetaldehyde in the blood is very small, then it cannot have a detrimental effect on the brain. Some authors even argue that alcohol does not destroy neurons, but only suppresses their function. At the same time, they forget to tell us that the brain consumes from 30% to 50% of the energy received by the body, and this is achieved, among other things, due to the fact that the brain has a more intense blood supply than all other parts of the body. That is why the effect of alcohol on the brain is stronger than on the rest of the body.

In the first part of the article on how our brain is arranged and functioning, I talked about the fact that one of the most important components of our nervous system, which determines its qualities and capabilities, is the structure of connections between neurons that we formed in the learning process. Therefore, the greatest value for us is not the nerve cells themselves as such, but these very connections that are established between them. It is in them that our long-term memory is encoded, it is these connections that determine our knowledge, skills and abilities.

When a person drinks alcohol, and it doesn't matter in what doses, the main damage will be done to our neural network. And the problem is not even that nerve cells will die from the effects of ethyl alcohol or acetaldehyde molecules. In the end, the body can gradually replace them with new ones if you stop drinking alcohol. The main problem is that when the molecules of ethyl alcohol or acetaldehyde meet on their way processes of neurons, axons or dendrites, then under their action they are destroyed, breaking the connections of the neural network. At the same time, the peculiarity of the action of ethyl alcohol or the same acetaldehyde molecules on protein molecules is that by destroying the spatial structure of the protein they themselves do not change and can continue to destroy other protein molecules. The process of further oxidation of the ethyl alcohol or acetaldehyde molecule occurs only if they meet with the corresponding enzymes. For the oxidation of ethyl alcohol, the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase is needed, and for acetaldehyde, its own enzyme with the equally furious name of aldehyde dehydrogenase.

But the main thing for us is to understand for ourselves the essence, which is that even a very small amount of alcohol or its decay products in the blood already leads to irreversible consequences for the structure of our neural network, since millions of connections in which our knowledge, abilities and skills are encoded are destroyed. … No amount of moderate alcohol consumption can be beneficial! Your body can replace the neurons killed by alcohol, but you will have to form all the broken connections anew!

If a person consumes a large amount of alcohol, then the consequences for his nervous system are simply catastrophic. Why does a person in a state of intoxication lose coordination of movements? Yes, because in his nervous system the connections that are responsible for controlling these movements begin to break down! Moreover, the destruction of connections occurs not only in the brain, but also in the spinal cord and in the peripheral nervous system too. And if someone gets drunk to the point where his legs are no longer holding him, then in order to recover, he will definitely need to sleep it off. Why does he need sleep? Because in order to restore broken connections and restore the functioning of the system, neurons must rebuild their structure, and this happens only in a dream. And when a person has abused alcohol, then the body's defense program is triggered, which simply knocks out the consciousness, so that the idiot who controls this body does not completely ruin it. And after that, while the consciousness is off, the body begins to lick the wounds received from alcohol, remove it from the body and restore the broken connections that are important for further functioning. But the body cannot produce new neurons in the required quantity. Therefore, he will be forced to use the neurons that he has available. That is, having restored the most important skills and abilities that were violated, since alcohol does not choose, but hits the areas where it gets, the body will be forced to use neurons that were involved in some less important and critical connections. As a result, one way or another, you will either forget some information, or you will lose some not so often used skills and abilities, or if they are not completely lost, the effectiveness of their implementation will drop.

So the well-known phrase: "drank the brains" actually needs to be taken literally.

And here is another very popular phrase among people who drink alcohol: "skill is not drunk", in fact, a blatant lie. In fact, it still gets drunk, and gets drunk quickly enough. There are a lot of examples of this around, only people do not want to notice them.

For comparison, the picture above shows the brain of an ordinary person on the left and the brain of an alcoholic on the right. Degradation of brain tissue and a significant decrease in its volume are very indicative. But all these facts do not prevent the scoundrels from saying that the brain cells do not die from alcohol or to instill in the townsfolk the phrase: "skill is not drunk".

Why do you need to solder the population? The answer is simple to the point of banality. To make this population dumber, since dumber people are easier to manage, easier to exploit through deception. But a very stupid population is also bad, it is desirable that the process proceeds gradually, so that while a person is young and able to invent, invent, discover something, he is capable of this, when he reaches middle age, he gains life experience and starts asking inconvenient the ruling elite questions, it is desirable that the level of his intelligence fell and he was slightly dull. That is why the idea of the usefulness of moderate alcohol consumption has appeared and is so strongly promoted. Well, you are a cultured and educated person, you can control yourself, you are not some kind of alcoholic after all! Therefore, you can afford to drink in reasonable doses. Look at the screens of cinemas and TVs. You will hardly find today a film or television series in which the main characters would not drink alcohol in a moderate and very cultured way! In all popular TV shows, in almost every episode there will be a scene with the main characters, where they are holding glasses of alcohol!

In this regard, the example of the popular American TV series "Bones", running for the 10th season, is especially indicative, the main character of which, a very famous and obsessed with science scientist - forensic anthropologist Temperens Brennan, who has several scientific degrees. She is very erudite, obsessed with a healthy lifestyle, sometimes to the point of absurdity, pays a lot of attention to proper nutrition, cleanliness of the environment, the absence of any negative factors, while periodically explaining to the layman from the TV screen why, from a scientific point of view, certain things are harmful or useful. But at the same time, the same Temperance Brennan regularly, in almost every episode, drinks alcohol! How so? Temperance Brennan, who is so advanced in all matters, does not know anything about the negative consequences of alcohol consumption ?!

But by the same to the layman who watches this series with pleasure, the thought is imperceptibly pushed to him that if Temperance Brennan herself, whose erudition and knowledge can be envied, allows herself to drink alcohol, then there is nothing wrong with that. So I can, too, culturally, a little bit, well, that's like Temperance Brennan. Expensive wine, from a beautiful glass, supposedly continuous benefit and no harm. At the same time, I would like to separately draw your attention to the fact that all this propaganda of "cultural" alcohol consumption is not only in Russia, it goes all over the world, since all these serials and films are not made in order to be shown only in Russia.

Back in 1975, ethyl alcohol was officially recognized as a drug. But despite this, alcohol today is the only drug that is officially allowed to be sold in almost all countries of the world. Yes, somewhere there are certain restrictions on the sale, but at the same time it is allowed to sell alcohol to oneself quite legally and officially.

For the big picture, here's some more food for thought. These are the results of a study of which drug is most harmful to whoever uses it and those around him.

As follows from the results of this study, alcohol is confidently leading, but at the same time no one is even going to prohibit it! On the contrary, we are constantly being told how beneficial it is to drink the same wine. It turns out that it improves digestion and protects against heart disease, and generally does many other useful things with the body! There are so many nutrients and vitamins that grapes contain! The only thing they forget to tell us at the same time is about the harm caused to our brain by alcohol, which is also present in wine, and also about the fact that all the same positive results can be obtained if you just drink natural grape juice, in which has no alcohol at all!