Let’s talk about alcohol. Or to be more precise, ethyl alcohol, or ethanol. If you can remember the first time you drank an alcoholic beverage, you probably remember how you didn’t like it. Beer is bitter. Vodka tastes like Listerine (or vice versa, and for obvious reasons). You can acquire a taste for alcohol, but chances are you never liked it originally. So why do we drink it? That’s obvious as well: people like the high they get off of it and how it loosens their social inhibitions. We also drink it because it has become a socially accepted thing to do (i.e., peer pressure). Dionysus would even say that we need alcohol in order to help us unwind. I don’t know about that. I also don’t know how great the high is when there’s the healthy alternative of getting high off exercise. Not surprisingly, alcohol doesn’t help you at all in the realm of athletic performance and general health.
Alcohol Lowers Testosterone Levels in Men
… And Boosts it in Women. Not Cool.
No doubt you’ve heard of all the negative implications of drinking, but did you know that alcohol lowers your testosterone levels? That is, if you’re a man. This means fewer muscle gains. Fewer muscle gains means less muscle, which means a lower metabolic rate. A lower metabolic rate means more fat gain and/or less fat loss [5]. Suddenly drinking doesn’t seem so “manly,” now does it? That’s why real men drink BLAND, BORING, UNFLAVORED WATER.
How does alcohol affect women? Does it still increase testosterone? Actually, it does not appear to. Acute alcohol consumption seems to increase testosterone in women [4]. This helps contribute to the “beer goggles” effect that makes drunk women more prone to engaging in sexual behavior that they would normally not agree to. The same thing happens to men, but heavy drinking over time decreases men’s testosterone levels and increases their estrogen, which can even cause them to take on female physical attributes, such as breasts. It also can decrease male libido and cause related problems [1]. You get the idea. You’re getting a plethora of bad crap, just to get a temporary buzz going.