Can Kidneys Recover From Alcohol Damage?

Kidneys can usually recover from short-term alcohol damage. However, alcohol can have other impacts on your health. Just because your kidneys have recovered from immediate effects of alcohol damage doesn’t mean that the impact on your kidneys is over.
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Remember, your body is an ecosystem. Damage to one organ has reverberating effects that impact many other organs. 
Here, we’ll share insights into some of the ways alcohol impacts the kidneys and how much alcohol is safe to drink.

How Does Alcohol Affect The Kidneys?

One of the kidneys’s jobs is to remove toxins from your blood. When you drink alcohol, you put toxins into your blood, making your kidneys’ job extra hard. If you drink too much, your kidneys might not be able to keep up. As a result, your kidneys will struggle to maintain the proper amount of fluid within your body.
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Because your kidneys impact the health of your other organs, stressed kidneys can create a ripple effect that has ongoing consequences for your overall health.

Alcohol Can Affect the Kidneys Through High Blood Pressure

Alcohol can also damage your kidneys by causing high blood pressure (hypertension). This happens because alcohol leads to a higher volume of the hormone renin in your blog. Too much renin causes blood vessels to contract. That makes your heart need to work harder to pump blood through your body. As a result, your kidneys receive less nutrients from the bloodstream, making it harder for them to perform their role of removing toxins.
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High blood pressure can have a compounding effect on your kidneys, weakening your blood vessels, your kidneys, and other organs until your kidneys ultimately fail.

Alcohol Can Affect the Kidneys Through Diabetes

Drinking too much can damage your body’s sensitivity to insulin, disrupting your body’s blood-sugar levels. Alcohol can also lead to acute pancreatitis, and repetitive damage can lead to chronic pancreatitis.

With chronic pancreatitis, you could lose the ability to produce or use insulin. This can result in diabetes, which increases your risk for kidney disease. Over time, high blood sugar levels can reduce your kidneys’ ability to function.
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Related read: What’s the link between diabetes and kidney disease? ​

How Does Alcohol Affect The Kidneys?

Yes, excessive alcohol consumption can eventually lead to acute kidney failure (also called acute kidney injury). Without proper treatment, acute kidney failure can be fatal. But, if you’re an otherwise healthy person, your body can typically recover from acute kidney failure with the appropriate medical attention.
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Acute kidney failure has a rapid onset and is most frequently caused by illnesses. In contrast, kidney failure or end-stage renal disease is the final stage of chronic kidney disease.

How Does Alcohol Affect The Kidneys?

There aren’t symptoms of kidney damage that are unique to alcohol. General symptoms of kidney damage include the following:

• Pain in the kidneys and lower back
  
• Swelling in the ankles, legs, and face
  
• Changes in the color of your urine
  
• Chest pain
  
• Fatigue
  
• Shortness of breath
  

These symptoms are the same as what a person living with untreated chronic kidney disease might experience.

What’s a Safe Amount to Drink?

According to the CDC, men should have no more than two drinks a day, and women should have no more than one drink a day.
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Pop news programs may latch onto stories about how a glass of wine a day is good for your health. However, you should be skeptical of these claims. They fail to account for the numerous other factors impacting a person’s health, such as diet and exercise. After all, alcohol is a known carcinogen. It can have detrimental health impacts even when consumed at low levels.

If you choose to drink, limit yourself to the CDC’s recommended guidelines and be sure to drink plenty of water. And if you don’t drink, don’t start.

Concerned About Your Kidney Health? Talk to Milwaukee Nephrologists

​When you’re concerned about your kidney health, Milwaukee Nephrologists is your go-to resource. To learn more, check out our other educational articles, or get in touch with our staff of nephrologists, transplant specialists, and dietitians to schedule an appointment.