Is it true that drinking alcohol warms you? | Top Vip News

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Is it true that drinking alcohol warms you?

Don’t be fooled by the legend of a Saint Bernard carrying a barrel of brandy to frozen hikers in the snowy Alps. Alcohol may make you feel warm on a cold day, but it’s an illusion.

Alcohol dilates blood vessels and sends warm blood to your skin, where it stimulates nerve endings that help you feel heat. “Your skin is actually warming up and that makes you feel good, as good as walking on a sunny day and feeling the sun on your skin,” he said. Keith Humphreys, professor of psychiatry at Stanford University. “But that means heat is escaping your body.”

As blood rises to the surface, it moves away from the core, where it is needed to keep organs warm. Your body is cooling, not warming, and you won’t be able to feel it. In adverse weather conditions, this can increase the risk of hypothermia — very low body temperature — experts said.

“The beer jacket is an illusion,” said Aaron White, senior scientific adviser to the director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

There is a second mechanism by which alcohol can affect core body temperature, experts said. Interrupts the work of hypothalamuswhich, in part, regulates that core temperature, limiting the body’s ability to control it and making it more susceptible to ambient temperature.

TO literature review by the Army Environmental Medicine Research Institute found that “alcohol ingestion exacerbates the drop in core body temperature during cold exposure” by inhibiting the shivering response in which muscles contract and relax to warm the body. body.

But not everyone may respond the same way.

The effects of alcohol on body temperature can be influenced by a number of factors such as the amount of alcohol consumed, personal tolerance and overall health, he said. Julia Zumpanoregistered dietitian at the Cleveland Clinic Center for Human Nutrition.

In general, the higher the level of alcohol in the bloodstream, the more likely a person is to experience side effects, including a change in core body temperature, studies show. As do those who have certain medical conditions or are taking particular medications, Zumpano said in an email.

But some people can tolerate alcohol better than others and may not be as susceptible to certain reactions, he said.

What else you should know:

When drinking alcohol in cold environments, White said, don’t be fooled by that warm feeling. Take precautions:

  • Wrap.
  • Don’t walk long distances in the cold.
  • Do not stay out in the cold for long periods of time.

Drinking alcoholic beverages on a cold day may make you feel warm, but it probably lowers your core body temperature and makes you feel colder.

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