Ever wake up the morning after so thirsty you can't believe it? Not surprising. Plain and simple, alcoholic beverages dehydrate your body. By hindering the production of vasopressin (anti-diuretic hormones), alcohol forces your kidneys to work double time to remove excess water from your system and leaves your organs (remember, skin is your largest one) parched.
Skin that's dry from the inside out not only wrinkles more quickly than nice, moist skin does, but it can take on a pale or gray cast -- a condition that is exacerbated by the fact that alcohol also robs the body of vitamin A -- an antioxidant that's critical for cell renewal and turnover.
Next: What drinking does to your skin
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Alcohol worsens skin issues
Drinking alcohol is one of the main culprits of rosacea -- a confounding skin condition that causes redness -- and often pustules on the cheeks and nose. A whopping 52 percent of 1,066 patients surveyed by the National Rosacea Society cited alcohol consumption as the primary trigger for a surge in their condition.
And, it's not just people with the disorder who run the risk of unwanted, permanent redness. Alcohol not only increases blood flow and dilates the tiny blood vessels that are closest to the outer layer of your skin, it sometimes does it in such volume that they burst, causing unsightly, enduring "broken" capillaries on the face.
(Note: Psoriasis sufferers need to be particularly careful when it comes to downing more than a few cocktails. Forty percent of those affected by the condition drink too much.)
Next: Why drinking makes you puffy all over
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Alcohol causes bloating
When you think of bloating and alcohol it's usually the beer gut that comes to mind. Guess what? That puffiness isn't limited to your middle. Remember when we talked about how alcohol depletes your body of water and how the kidneys have to kick in to overdrive? That same effect comes in to play with the dreaded facial bloat. Because your body is being robbed of fluids and electrolytes, it stores all the water you ingest (in food or beverage), which causes tissues to swell and causes you to resemble Alvin the chipmunk.
Next: The telltale red eyes
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Alcohol affects your eyes
In much the same way that alcohol causes broken capillaries on your face, it irritates and enlarges the tiny blood vessels on the surface of your eye (the sclera) causing a "bloodshot" appearance. Not vain enough to be put off by a few red lines? How about blindness? Because excessive drinking robs the body of some nutrients required to maintain eye health, it can lead to a condition called alcoholic optic neuritis, which impairs eyesight and, over time, can result in blindness.
Next: Kiss your glossy hair goodbye
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Alcohol can wreck your hair
In the same way that drinking alcohol desiccates your skin, it dehydrates your hair. The problem, of course, is that dry hair is weak, brittle and more prone to split ends. Excessive alcohol use can also trigger a zinc deficiency in the body, which has been shown to cause hair loss.
As if these look-robbing effects weren't bad enough, many drinkers also smoke. And smoking has its own specialized way of stealing your beauty.
Next: How to offset some of the damage
It's been a while now, but, think back to the fabulously glam women of "Sex and the City." OK, good. Now, what do you picture them doing? Images of the four friends sipping Cosmos at some trendy New York City eatery popped to mind since that's what all the beautiful, socially adept people do, right? They sip cocktails? Because, of course, no one in TV land ever suffers health (or beauty) consequences from such things.
That visual of attractive folk milling about, martini/wine/champagne glass in hand, has long been promulgated in all forms of media. F. Scott Fitzgerald painted images of the luxe, lush life in his novels (while suffering from alcoholism in his real life); the whole world knows James Bond's cinematic beverage of choice; and no self-respecting primetime drama is complete without a bar scene or two.
The takeaway, of course, is that drinking alcohol is glamorous. And, while it may be fine to raise a glass every now and again, drinking too much, as everyone knows, definitely takes a toll on your body and your looks.
As author Jason Vale says in his book "Slim for Life," drinking "batters your liver, kidneys, and pancreas; it dehydrates your body; destroys brain cells and can shrink your brain. It eats away your stomach lining, weakens eyesight and causes impotence, diabetes, and obesity." And that doesn't even begin to cover what it does to the outside.
Let's find out precisely what kind of havoc drinking too much can wreak on your looks (besides, of course, making you fat, that's a given) and discuss what you can do — besides becoming a strict teetotaler — to keep that damage to a minimum. And, to round things out, we'll walk through a few ways to make it look like you didn't over imbibe — even when you did. So, if you're game, let's put down that glass and get cracking...
