How Alcohol Affects Your Kidney Health

If you drink consistently, it’s inevitable that, over time, drinking will begin to impact your kidney’s functioning. Since even moderate drinking shows immediate physical and functional changes to these precious organs, it’s advised to keep drinking to a minimum. However, if drinking persists, the kidneys will begin to accrue damage over time.

alcohol and kidneys

However, if caught in time, your doctor may prescribe medications and a change in your diet. The first negative impact of alcohol https://ecosoberhouse.com/ on your kidneys is its tendency to cause a fluid imbalance. Within 20 minutes of a drink, patients experience a need to urinate.

Alcohol Consumption Can be a “Double-Edged Sword” for Chronic Kidney Disease Patients

We think that the enhancement of CAT activities may not come from high concentration of ethanol, but rather from the compensatory improvement of antioxidant capacity after the intervention with low-concentration ethanol in the early stage. The association between increased blood pressure and alcohol consumption has been recognized at least since 1915, when Lian reported the prevalence of high blood pressure (i.e., hypertension) in relation to the drinking habits of French army officers. In this analysis, researchers found that compared with drinking no alcohol, drinking moderate amounts may decrease a person’s risk of developing renal cell carcinoma, a type of kidney cancer. Moderate amounts of alcohol equated to just over one alcoholic drink, or about 15 g of alcohol, per day.

  • As an example, Puddey and colleagues (1985) evaluated the effects of hormones that regulate kidney function.
  • For example, when rats are given alcohol, they also require significant magnesium in their diets, suggesting that alcohol disrupts absorption of this nutrient from the gut.
  • Emergen Research is a market research and consulting company that provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services.
  • It also discusses the question is alcohol bad for your kidneys when you have kidney disease.

A blockage or obstruction prevents urine from properly draining from the kidney to the bladder. You may experience flank pain and pain or difficulty during urination. For these reasons, it’s natural that when your kidneys have to work extra hard to rid the body of excess alcohol, you may experience pain. Frequent urination that goes along with this flushing of the system can lead to dehydration. This can interfere with the functioning of the kidneys and other organs. If two drinks makes you feel woozy or you experience some mild kidney symptoms, it may be time to stop for the evening.

Sodium

Wine and beer have been shown to be the most beneficial when it comes to reducing kidney stone risk. We will cover the nutritional aspects of how alcohol can effect the kidneys. In some cases, a renal vitamin or multivitamin may be recommended to you by your alcohol and kidneys dietitian. Be sure to discuss with your healthcare team which type of vitamin and dose is best for you. Too much alcohol can result in high losses of magnesium in the urine. Consequently, it causes an increase in the removal of magnesium from the kidneys.

  • Treat gastritis by avoiding alcohol, pain medications, and recreational drugs.
  • Follow a low-fat, healthy diet that has plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables.
  • The intoxicant not only affects the cognitive function of the body but also damages the vital organ.
  • In fact, most liver damage is directly mirrored by the kidneys, and vice versa.
  • This transfer of phosphate out of muscle cells and into the bloodstream results in an increased amount of phosphate passing through the kidneys’ filtering system.

In the kidneys, ROS is generated via both enzymatic and non-enzymatic processes [22,23,27,32,36,37]. In addition, Das et al. reported that alcohol consumption impairs the ability of CAT to catalyze the decomposition of H2O2 in the kidneys [41]. This subsequently promotes the conversion of H2O2 to the more reactive hydroxyl radicals, which cause damage in antioxidant capacities and mitochondria in renal cells [34,42,43]. Samadi et al. also suggested that ethanol induces depression of nephrin and podocin in podocytes, which contributes to renal injury and proteinuria and is mediated by oxidative stress [44]. Although most of the alcohol is metabolized in the liver, the kidneys are equally important in the metabolism and excretion of ethyl alcohol. Some enzymes that are necessary for ethanol metabolism, such as alcohol dehydrogenase, CYP2E1, and CYP24A1, have been found in the kidneys [22,23].