Influences on Health

Influences on Health

Influences on Health: Alcohol, Smoking, Diet and Stress.
The aim of this essay is to discover the role of different factors on human health and what diseases are results of them. The factors that will be covered are: Alcohol, Smoking, Diet and Stress.
{draw:frame} Most adults in the UK drink alcohol moderately and on a social basis and derive a lot of pleasure from doing so. The majority of these adults who enjoy a drink do so without it having a negative effect on their day to day life or an impact on their health. The real problem here is that they don’t actually know how much they are or should be drinking.
Alcohol is other well known as Ethanol, which is a result of glucose being fermented by yeast. It is a drug that controls peoples moods making people feel relaxed and happy, but alcohol is actually a depressant.
The government guidelines recommend that men shouldn’t drink more than three to four units a day and women two to three units a day. “1.7 million Men drink more than 50 units of alcohol a week and 600,000 women drink more than 35 units a week” (Drinkaware 2009)
Drinking over the recommend daily allowance is labelled “harmful” by the government and puts people are more risk of a range of alcohol related diseases. Not only can it cause a hangover the next day, but if more than the recommend daily allowance is consumed on a regular basis, it can cause more long term damage to the body.
Along with the central nervous system, the liver suffers the most from alcohol consumption. The liver can only handle a certain amount of alcohol at any given time. The liver needs water to do its job and as Alcohol is a diuretic, it dehydrates the body and forces the water to divert water from elsewhere.
When the liver is processing the alcohol is produces acetaldehyde. This has a toxic effect on the liver brain and stomach and causes a hangover. Acetaldehyde subsequently breaks down in a chemical called acetate, which is broken down into carbon...

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