Summer or winter, drinking alcohol to cool off or warm up is not a good idea. Inserm's Canal Détox explains how alcohol blurs warning signals and masks dangers. Worse, it deactivates our regulatory mechanisms, weakens our natural defenses... According to him, alcohol acts like a traitor in our body and produces the opposite effect of what was intended.

When it's very hot, alcohol is a false friend: it disrupts your body's regulatory mechanisms, accelerates dehydration, and masks warning signs. As a result, the risk of feeling unwell increases... without you even realizing it, reveals Inserm's Canal Détox, as reported by Futura.

According to him, "far from helping our bodies cope with the heat, alcohol does exactly the opposite: it disrupts the natural mechanisms that help us cool down."

Indeed, the Canal Détox cell of Inserm, which examines preconceived ideas about health, deciphers what really happens in our body when we drink under a blazing sun.

Why drinking alcohol is not a good idea to cool off?

According to her, when it's very hot, the body does everything it can to avoid overheating: it sweats, our blood vessels dilate (which is why some people get red cheeks!), and muscle activity slows down. But when you drink a cocktail or a glass of wine, everything gets complicated.

"Alcohol blocks the secretion of antidiuretic hormone (ADH), whose primary role is to increase the amount of water reabsorbed in the kidneys and reduce urine production. As a result, if this hormone is blocked, we go to the bathroom more, and we become dehydrated more quickly. The problem: without water, the body can no longer produce enough sweat to cool itself down," she explains.

He added: "In addition, the body is less efficient at evacuating heat. Indeed, alcohol disrupts the thermal regulation centers located in the hypothalamus, at the heart of our central nervous system. Concretely, the body's internal thermostat no longer reacts correctly to overheating signals, our body no longer knows when to sweat and dilate our blood vessels. Finally, alcohol scrambles the signals in our brain: we don't feel the heat coming on, the sensation of thirst is masked and we forget to cool off until it's too late, at the risk of feeling unwell."

Why is this not a good idea for warming up either?

Inserm's Canal Détox unit also maintains that alcohol is not a better ally for keeping warm in winter. "When it's cold, the blood vessels near the skin constrict to keep as much heat as possible around vital organs, such as the heart and brain. But alcohol directly interferes with this process. The vessels dilate and blood rushes to the skin. Deceptively, this blood pulsation makes us feel hot, when in reality, the body is releasing heat. Our core temperature then drops without us being aware of it, because alcohol also alters the perception of cold and prevents us from reacting, for example, by putting on a coat or going inside to take shelter. In addition, alcohol also prevents the liver from producing enough glucose: the body needs sugar to trigger the shivers that help keep us warm," she explained.

What should we remember then?

Still according to Inserm's Canal Détox unit, whether in intense cold or extreme heat, alcohol sends signals that are the opposite of those the body should receive to adapt. "This is all the more misleading because the immediate sensations are pleasant: when it's hot, we feel like we're cooling down, when it's cold, we think we're warming up... All with a pleasant feeling of relaxation, which alters our alertness and delays good reflexes. In both cases, the body is put in difficulty even as it tries to cope with stress. And in both cases, alcohol weakens its ability to defend itself. Our body becomes exhausted, and that's when accidents happen," she revealed.

In case of extreme heat, warns the Inserm Canal Détox unit, "it is better to drink water, stay in the shade and avoid intense exertion." Because, it adds, "alcohol does not cool us down any more than it warms us up in winter." According to it, alcohol deceives, weakens and endangers, whether in the snow or in the sun.