The A-Files, Alcohol A-Z for Alcohol Awareness Month: Vitamin Deficiency

(See online video and article)

Twenty-six episodes of 'The A-Files' air throughout Alcohol Awareness Month on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Alcohologist.com and AddictedMinds.com, among other web and social media sites. Episode V returns to the topic of nutrition with Vitamin Deficiency. Even moderate alcohol use destroys vital nutrients –vitamins, minerals, and amino acids – that control mental function, preventing depression, and maintaining physical health. I'll note only two here: It raids the body of B-vitamins and has a dramatic impact on the way vitamin A is handled. A study published in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) Journal gives a little more detail on vitamin A first. 

It suggests long-term alcohol use lowers vitamin A levels in the liver, which is the main site of both, alcohol metabolism and vitamin A storage, while bumping up vitamin A levels in many other tissues. Initially 15 percent of the body's vitamin A migrates out of the liver to other tissues. Ultimately, around 60 percent of the vitamin is lost with heavier or more frequent drinking. So it's a wash if liver vitamin A is low and vitamin A in other tissues is elevated, right? Not exactly.

The liver needs the vitamin A to stave off liver disease. And the other tissues don't feed the A into the bloodstream the way the liver does. You'll know you're deficient in the vitamin if you get night blindness or blotchy rashes or both. If it builds up in other tissues, it can become toxic. Self medicating with vitamin A supplements would worsen it, even if the liver stores are low. Vitamin A toxicity usually reveals itself with headaches, nausea, drowsiness, vomiting… which could be confused with the alcohol itself.

The B-complex vitamins are especially vulnerable and destroyed by alcohol. Specifically, B-vitamin absorption is blocked by alcohol use and vitamin-B stores are drained by the by the process of metabolizing the alcohol and ridding it from the body. These vitamins are essential to mental and emotional well being. Vitamin B1 deficiencies can cause neurological and cardiac disorders among drinkers. B2, B3, B12 and folic acid deficiency are all linked to depression and fatigue because they help control how the body uses energy. Vitamin B-6 deficiency can disrupt the formation of neurotransmitters in the brain, which can have the effect of helping make a moderate drinker alcohol dependent. Introducing a toxin into the body's delicate nutrient balance has yet to be proven to increase wellness or longevity.

The entire 26 episode HD series is available on disc, along with fact sheets, for helping professions. See the preorder special at tr.im/AFiles

Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of CBS Sports' Power Up Your Health featuring Scott Stevens.  Another interview is on Alcohol Awareness.  Syndicated radio program Savvy Central Radio did this interview, too. Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature called "When alcohol doesn't work for you anymore."  Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud and the first for Adding Fire to the Fuel also can be found on www.alcohologist.com. Download the FREE Alcohology app in the Google PlayStore today. Stevens also is the public relations officer with AddictedMinds.com 

The A-Files, Alcohol A-Z for Alcohol Awareness Month: Nutrition

(See online article)

Twenty-six episodes of 'The A-Files' air throughout Alcohol Awareness Month on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Alcohologist.com and AddictedMinds.com, among other web and social media sites. Episode N is on nutrition: You are what you eat, right? So what does that say about the notorious alcoholic diet? If we eat at all while practicing our craft, it is usually some fried, fat-laden, over-processed food to stave off the hangover or quickly satisfy a rumbling stomach.

Alcohol-related malnutrition is often reflected in body weight loss, mainly

muscle tissue. You're not growing huge guns lifting 12 ounces at a time. Nutritional imbalance is often compounded in drinkers by the effect alcohol has on gastrointestinal function. These effects include increased transit times between when you eat or drink something and pass it as waste. Impaired salt and water absorption also play a role in malnutrition. (See related study)

Wet brain is a term used in treatment circles. We get it not because we're alcoholic, but because of what alcohol does to B-vitamin absorption plus our notoriously lame diets. Malnourishment causes it, not alcoholism. Binge drinkers, people with the eating disorder bulimia and even women with severe morning sickness can get it too, again because the body is thiamine deficient. Wet brain is brain damage. It's medical term is Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome, a combination of Wernicke's encephalopathy and Korsakoff's psychosis. A person with wet brain usually has trouble walking or poor coordination, memory loss or memories of things that never happened, hallucinations, vision changes.

Two things to know about wet brain. First, is that it has two stages. The Wernicke's encephalopathy stage often is struck off by a surge of blood sugar in a vitamin-deficient brain. Alcohol doesn't fry the brain or kill brain cells the way people commonly think, the B-1 protects the brain from glucose surges which gray matter doesn't tolerate well. If the first stage isn't immediately treated with thiamine injections, it cannot be reversed. If it goes untreated all together, the Korsakoff's psychosis is the second stage. This is permanent brain damage. But people can relearn through rehab.

Only 20 percent of cases are diagnosed before death. For those who are diagnosed before the alcohol kills them, one in four cases require long-term care. Wet brain isn't something that takes awhile to develop. It hits suddenly. There is no warning. Let the drinking serve as the warning.
The entire 26 episode HD series is available on disc, along with fact sheets, for helping professions. See the preorder special at tr.im/AFiles

Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of CBS Sports' Power Up Your Health featuring Scott Stevens.  Another interview is on Alcohol Awareness.  Syndicated radio program Savvy Central Radio did this interview, too. Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature called "When alcohol doesn't work for you anymore."  Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud and the first for Adding Fire to the Fuel also can be found on www.alcohologist.com. Download the FREE Alcohology app in the Google PlayStore today. Stevens also is the public relations officer with AddictedMinds.com