red The term appeared at the beginning of the millennium and is not yet listed as an official disease. Drankorexia is a condition in which a person replaces food with alcohol quite deliberately. Not the least of these is the hormone leptin, with which all eating disorders are affiliated. Why patients resort to such substitution, how it affects the state of health, you will learn from the article.
Contents:
- General information.
- Essence of the pathology.
- Danger of the disease.
- Treatment.
- Prognosis.
General Information
There are several versions of the emergence of dranocorexia. The most popular is the influence of social networks on the minds of young people. Not so long ago they used to say “pernicious influence of the West”, but throwing away the clichés, we must admit that this is how the addiction is formed. In the West it is common among young people to refuse snacks in favor of alcohol in order to achieve high spirits at a party or in a bar as quickly as possible. It also saves money!
Young people in Russia have partly adopted this habit. Especially girls who saw in it a side effect – fast weight loss. Alcohol helps to get rid of extra pounds, and at the same time does not feel hunger at all. This is the whole secret of the popularity of Drankorexia.
However, there is another version. According to it, drankorexia owes its appearance to nutritionist Connie Gutterson. She is the author of the alcohol diet. The essence of this special diet lies in the fact that after each meal a glass of wine should be drunk. Logically, this should speed up the digestion of food and prevent the deposition of fat in the hypodermis.
Alcohol provokes fluctuations in blood levels of leptin and ghrelin, associated with it, which disrupts the perception of hunger. But whether the followers of Guttersen’s diet poorly grasped the essence of the nutritionist’s diet, or whether they improved the diet themselves, but it all came down to the fact that food was simply replaced with alcohol.
By the way, they were not the first. The pioneer of this method of weight loss was King William the Conqueror of England. When no horse could keep him down because of his obesity, he easily refused to eat, and he quenched his hunger with wine. This is the third version of the origin of drancorexia, which has ancient roots. Wilhelm’s weight loss system is still popular today.
The essence of the pathology
To understand what drancorexia means, you can simply translate the name of the pathology from English. The term is translated as “drinking instead of appetite” and is used in medical practice to refer to various eating disorders. By analogy with anorexia or orthorexia. In Russia, a different name is used: alcorexia. Of course, obviously, this is not the norm, but it also has nothing to do with alcoholism.
It is a kind of precursor to alcohol dependence, the very borderline that, once crossed, one becomes an alcoholic. Drankorexia is a condition in which the patient self-substitutes food calories for alcohol in order to lose weight. In other words, the trigger for drancorexia is fixation on one’s own weight. This is inherent in girls or women for whom an ideal figure becomes an obsession.
Today, despite the popularity of body positivity and the popularization of accepting yourself as you are, weight loss with the help of alcohol does not go out of fashion. It is being lumped in with bulimia and anorexia, even though there is no official diagnosis of druncorexia.
The essence of weight loss with the help of alcohol is that strong alcohol dulls the sense of hunger. This means that the patient on the diet consumes fewer calories, which means that he automatically loses weight. By the way, many drancorexics choose alcohol for the diet very seriously, considering the energy value of the drink, its glycemic index. Patients with a history of alcoholic weight loss know exactly, for example, that the glycemic index of vodka and tequila is zero.
But at the same time in 100 ml of these drinks contains about 200 kcal. From an energy point of view – it is a lot. But wine and beer with low calories provoke a surge of sugar in the bloodstream, that is, activate leptin, which increases the appetite by blocking the feeling of satiety in the hypothalamus. Incidentally, this is why many women don’t eat anything before drinking, so as not to overindulge in calories. And about a third of young girls stick to a low-calorie diet so they can have an extra glass of wine.
Interestingly, quite often drankorexia begins with the refusal of a woman who is watching her figure, at a party or an anniversary party from an extra serving of snacks in favor of her favorite, but high-calorie wine. At first it is quite harmless, but over time this substitution becomes a habit, which is fraught with the formation of alcohol dependence.
Experts call this very behavior drankorexia and say about the need for help from psychiatrists or psychologists to such people. The highest risk of pathology remains in fans of all kinds of diets, constantly counting calories. In addition, obese patients or those who consider themselves fat are at risk. In other words, the more food restrictions a person has, the higher the risk of forming druncorexia in the future.
The dangers of the disease
You don’t need to be a big expert in medicine or dietetics to understand the dangers of the emerging food habit to your health. Any diet is a stress to the body, so you need to choose it very carefully. If you constantly refuse normal foods in favor of alcohol, then lose weight, of course, will work, but taking alcohol on an empty stomach will certainly provoke a bunch of problems, more serious than any extra pounds.
The most obvious danger of Drankorexia is alcoholism. At some point, patients stop being aware of what is happening, do not notice that their goal of getting rid of extra pounds has been achieved and continue to replace food with alcohol. A long stay on such a diet is a very real trigger of alcohol addiction.
Another danger is the loss under the influence of ethanol of the ability to think adequately and react to different situations. In addition, excessive consumption of alcohol provokes diseases of the digestive system, fatty hepatosis, cirrhosis, fatty infiltration of the pancreas.
Drinking alcohol on an empty stomach is a sure path to gastritis, ulcer and duodenal ulcer. Against the background of constant alcohol consumption the heart, blood vessels, kidneys, cerebral structures are affected, immunodeficiency occurs. Alcohol abuse “helps” the body to grow old quickly and even increases the risk of tumor formation. In addition, intoxication causes the desire to inhale a cigarette. So another bad habit is formed – smoking, which is dangerous even in the passive version and provokes not only a disease of the bronchopulmonary system, but also nicotine addiction and intoxication.
Giving up food in favor of cigarettes can play a cruel joke on someone who wants to lose weight – cause a metabolic disorder. In the worst case scenario, it is fraught with anorexia even after completing the diet and switching to a normal diet. Most organs stop functioning properly. Another option is rapid weight gain even from a glass of water.
Of course, leptin contributes to this situation, or rather its level in the blood and the development of leptin resistance, which manifests itself in the loss of normal control over a person’s eating behavior.
Another danger is the loss under the influence of ethanol of the ability to think adequately and react to different situations. In addition, excessive consumption of alcohol provokes diseases of the digestive system, fatty hepatosis, cirrhosis, fatty infiltration of the pancreas.
Drinking alcohol on an empty stomach is a sure path to gastritis, ulcer and duodenal ulcer. Against the background of constant alcohol consumption the heart, blood vessels, kidneys, cerebral structures are affected, immunodeficiency occurs. Alcohol abuse “helps” the body to grow old quickly and even increases the risk of tumor formation.
In addition, intoxication causes the desire to inhale a cigarette. So another bad habit is formed – smoking, which is dangerous even in the passive version and provokes not only a disease of the bronchopulmonary system, but also nicotine addiction and intoxication. Giving up food in favor of cigarettes can play a cruel joke on someone who wants to lose weight – cause a metabolic disorder.
In the worst case scenario, it is fraught with anorexia even after completing the diet and switching to a normal diet. Most organs stop functioning properly. Another option is rapid weight gain even from a glass of water. Of course, leptin contributes to this situation, or rather its level in the blood and the development of leptin resistance, which manifests itself in the loss of normal control over a person’s eating behavior.
After getting acquainted with drankorexia, one main conclusion is that trying to keep up with all the latest trends in order to lose weight may not end in the best way. First of all, it concerns women who like to commit rash actions, forgetting about health for the sake of beauty.
Prognosis
If the alcohol diet is abandoned in time and correction of the negative effects begun in time, the prognosis is favourable. If addiction to alcohol develops on an alcohol diet, the consequences can be fatal. Female alcoholism is especially dangerous.
