How Does Binge Drinking Affect The Heart? | Horizon: Is Binge Drinking Really That Bad? | Earth Lab

Chris and I will be drinking exactly the same amount as each other each week and we'll also be drinking the same type of alcohol. That way we should see the effect of how we drink rather than what we drink. So the reason I've chosen vodka is because I don't think I can drink 10 and a half pints in an evening. Nor do I. Now the scientists we spoke to to design the test said if we can start with three shots, that's you done, that's me started and then I can do the rest with mixes. So that's the plan. All right? Good. All right. Well how are you feeling about this? Are you looking forward to this? I don't often get to drink with you. No it's nice. It's quite fun. Catch up. Cheers. Neat warm vodka isn't really my tipple of choice. My last one. Cheers. It's your last drink of the evening. Really enjoy it. Three shots is perfect for me. That's for me a very nice sociable amount. There you go. Can you feel it? Yeah I feel great because I know I don't have to do any more. When alcohol reaches your stomach a small amount is absorbed into the bloodstream. However the majority will only enter the blood when it exits the stomach and reaches the small intestine. Once in the circulation it is taken to the liver where it will start to be metabolized. We know how alcohol is broken down and absorbed by the body but we still don't really know why we get hangovers. Lots of us think it's because alcohol makes us dehydrated. So I've got an idea. So here's what we're going to do this evening. You are going to drink the same amount of liquid as me. You're going to drink for every vodka and orange I have you're going to have an orange popped up with a shot of water. So through the evening and all through the night we're going to collect our urine and I reckon we'll pee exactly the same amount. Okay. How are we going to collect the urine? Oh well funny you should ask. Funny you should ask. We're going to use these. Something we can resolve even faster is the impact of how we drink on our hearts. Consultant cardiologist Dr Jerry Carwhite is going to show us. So what I'll do this is um it's quite safe it's just an ultrasound just like looking at babies and things but what we'll do is see if we can just get a little picture of your hearts. This is remarkable. Alcohol dilates the blood vessels near the skin. As the blood volume spreads the heart beats faster to keep oxygen flowing to our vital organs. What you can see is is on the right hand side of the screen you can see the main pumping chamber and then you can see that little flappy thing halfway down. The thing flapping there the white flap. So that's one of the heart valves and then the little chamber at the bottom that's the chamber that tends to speed up or change rhythm when people like you guys have a little bit too much to drink. So you've got a normal heart, normal size, it's functioning perfectly well. That's probably because Chris finished his three As the liver can process one to two units of alcohol an hour he'll be almost sober again by now. I've had triple that amount and so my body is struggling to cope. And that's your heart but I don't know if you can see do you see it's different to Chris's right it looks a little bit more um enthusiastic. Yeah it's very interesting actually I don't echo many drunken people but I think I can see a clear difference here so it's it's going quicker the actual electrics are normal it hasn't changed rhythm. It's certainly pumping a lot more vigorously than your brother so I think even at this stage we can see a clear difference in what's happening. And why is it pumping hard? I'm still sitting in my chair doing nothing. I think what we're seeing is the direct effects of alcohol in your heart. It's increasing the amount of blood the heart's trying to pump out it's probably putting your blood pressure up a little bit and it's making the heart go quicker. In the year 2000 the results of a 10-year study carried out in Scotland suggested that up to 20% more people die from heart attacks on a Monday than any other day and the authors concluded that this was linked to heavy drinking at the weekend. Probably feeling a bit less enthused about this now. Time for a pee and the first chance to see if I'm right about our hydration levels. So there you go that's the difference now that is not if you said oh I'm dehydrated by that much not enough to give you a hangover by a long way. But but we are nine shots in.