Food supplies energy and provides the building blocks needed to replace worn or damaged cells and the nutritional components needed for body function. Once ingested, food must be digested, so it is available for energy and maintenance of body structure and function Digestion begins in the mouth and continues in the stomach and intestines, with help from the pancreas.

Alcohol increases the stomach’s digestive enzymes, which can irritate the stomach wall, producing heartburn, nausea, gastritis, and ulcers. Even moderate drinking can still cause changes in gastric acid secretion, cause acute gastric mucosal injury, and also interfere with gastric and intestinal motility. Alcohol causes damage to the muscles that surround the stomach, and this damage changes how long it takes food to go through these organs.

Alcohol affects our nutritional process by affecting digestion, storage, utilization, and excretion of nutrients. Alcohol inhibits the breakdown of nutrients into usable molecules by decreasing secretion of digestive enzymes from the pancreas. Alcohol inhibits fat absorption and thereby impairs absorption of the vitamins A, E, and D that are normally absorbed along with dietary fats. Alcohol causes damage to the muscle layers of the stomach wall which mix incoming food bolus with gastric fluids. Alcohol may also inflame the small and large intestines.