Health care providers: Alcohol could make it harder to fight off coronavirus
CINCINNATI (WKRC) - If a glass or two of wine or a few beers are becoming part of your daily happy hour, you might want to reconsider: It might work against your efforts to fight off the coronavirus.
Several states have reported a big jump in alcohol sales during the past few weeks. Some of what appears to be influencing this is the ability in some states to order large quantities online as well as some general concern it might be tough to get if certain businesses shut down.
It may have to do with demand and the fact that many of us are sharing online happy hours with daily coronavirus government updates and our need for a coping mechanism.
But there's a word of caution from the team at DeCoach Rehabilitation. They work with treating addiction and say it's also one of the worst things we could be doing right now to boost immunity and keep us healthy and strong when we are trying to fight off catching a virus.
"Buying alcohol and consuming alcohol is going certainly going to affect you in different levels. So, there are several layers of protection that we human beings have. And they start from ingestion, so your stomach, your intestines have linings, and that protect the bacteria from crossing over and going into your blood. So, alcohol certainly disrupts that lining. It damages the epithelial cells over there, and it also kills some of the good bacteria," said Dr. Nabila Babar.
When you lose good gut bacteria, you reduce the body's ability to fight off infection as well, so just a word of caution before you have your online or at-home happy hour this weekend.
