Alcohol in pancreatitis: drink or live?

To answer the two main questions - whether alcohol is possible with pancreatitis and what alcohol can be used for pancreatitis - it should be recalled that alcohol abuse is the main cause of pancreatic inflammation, and two-thirds of cases of chronic pancreatitis are diagnosed in drinkers.

Harm to alcohol in pancreatitis

The fact that ethyl alcohol, that is, alcohol in pancreatitis is very harmful - a fact confirmed by clinical studies. So, do not even ask questions, can you vodka with pancreatitis, can you have beer with pancreatitis or - what kind of wine can you have with pancreatitis.

Most of the attacks of acute  pancreatitis  pass fairly quickly and, it would seem, do no irreparable damage to the pancreas, which produces not only digestive enzymes, but also important hormones such as insulin and glucagon.

However, every fifth case of acute pancreatitis leads to serious consequences in the form of strong oxidative stress of the body cells and death of (necrosis) of acinar cells, as well as effects on the body of endogenous toxins with edema of the brain and renal failure.

According to World Journal Gastroenterology, one third of acute cases of pancreatitis among Americans is caused by alcohol, and 75-80% of patients with pancreatitis have a history of constant consumption of alcohol, including beer. And in a fairly moderately drinking Britain, about 22,000 people are hospitalized every year with acute pancreatitis, and about a thousand of them die from this disease.

But even when the inflammation of the pancreas has a different origin, its acini are subjected to degeneration - fibrous degeneration - and to a large extent lose the ability to perform their functions. What causes the effect of alcohol, which is oxidized in the liver with the formation of acetic aldehyde (acetaldehyde)?

In the case of alcoholic beverages in the inflammation of the pancreas, its ducts narrow, the tone of the sphincter of the hepatic pancreatic ampulla also rises, and as a result, the pancreatic juice does not reach the duodenum and accumulates, leading to the aggravation of necrotic processes inside the pancreas - under the action of its enzymes.

And all this against the background of a significant increase in the secretory activity of the stomach and an increase in the synthesis of pancreatic secretions, promoted by serotonin, the release of which into the blood will increase under the influence of ethyl alcohol.

Beer lovers are not recommended to drink even non-alcoholic beer in pancreatitis: it contains intestinal peristalsis-enhancing carbon dioxide, as well as carbohydrate components that require more insulin produced by the pancreas. And about one third of people with chronic pancreatitis have diabetes (due to damage to β cells that synthesize this hormone).

Doctors remind that to improve the condition of the pancreas and preserve its ability to participate in digestion, you must follow a  diet for pancreatitis. So neither white wine with pancreatitis nor red dry wine useful for cores in pancreatitis can not be drunk: wine, albeit in small amounts, contains ethanol, formed during fermentation.

In acute pancreatitis, even if it was not caused by alcohol, it is completely forbidden to drink alcohol of any strength for at least six months - to enable the pancreas to "recover."

It should be borne in mind that necrosis of the pancreatic acinus is irreversible, and if you continue to drink alcohol, the pain will become stronger, the physiological resource of this body is exhausted faster, and the risk of a lethal outcome from complications increases threefold.

Each patient with pancreatic inflammation needs to radically change the approach to the problem of alcohol in pancreatitis, because in their case they will have to decide what is more important for them: to drink or to live ...