NIAAA’s free, research-based resources can help cut through the clutter and confusion about how alcohol affects people’s lives. It’s also worth noting that the effects of alcohol — and a hangover — may be particularly unpleasant if you also have COVID-19 symptoms. Alcohol can cause digestive upset, difficulty sleeping, trouble with concentration, and other unpleasant side effects that may worsen your symptoms. If you don’t have a physical dependency on alcohol, and you drink lightly or moderately, consider stopping while you have COVID-19. As a service to our readers, Harvard Health Publishing provides access to our library of archived content. Alcohol intolerance is a condition where the body reacts negatively to the consumption of alcohol.
Alcohol sales during the COVID-19 pandemic
We conducted a longitudinal interrupted time series study of a rolling cohort aged 15 years and older with at least 6 months of continuous insurance enrollment. We defined high-acuity alcohol-related complication episodes as conditions representing acute decompensation of chronic alcohol-related diseases that necessitated urgent or emergent management by a medical professional (eAppendix and eTable 1 in Supplement 1). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines excessive alcohol use as binge drinking, heavy drinking, alcohol use by people under the minimum legal drinking age, and alcohol use by pregnant women. AUD is a clinical diagnosis that indicates someone’s drinking is causing distress and harm. AUD can range from mild to severe, depending on the severity of the symptoms. Models adjusted for age group (15-39, 40-64, 65-74, and ≥75 years), sex, US division (9 divisions), poverty level of residence, and seasonality using quarterly indicators (eAppendix in Supplement 1).
How concerned should we be about people drinking to deal with the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic?
- While research on alcohol intolerance post-COVID-19 is limited, numerous anecdotal reports suggest that alcohol intolerance could be a symptom of long COVID for some individuals.
- Future research can focus on addressing the mental health needs of people with alcoholism or substance use disorders and people prone to it, especially during very stressful events.
- Similarly, alcohol can trigger inflammation in the gut and destroy the microorganisms that live in the intestine and maintain immune system health.
- Because of substantial and unexpected social and economic changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, many people turned to alcohol and other drugs to cope with those stressors.
All three authors (E.R.G., S.E.B.-N., and S.S.) were involved in the conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, investigation, resources, and data curation, but the exact amount of their contributions for each part varied. Funding acquisition, E.R.G.; writing—original draft preparation, E.R.G.; writing—review and editing, S.E.B.-N. what is tom arnold doing now All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
What are the symptoms of alcohol intolerance?
We also compared current alcohol consumption and the prevalence of binge drinking and extreme binge drinking in the past 30 days between participants who reported being very impacted by COVID-19 versus those who did not (Aim 2). Lastly, we examined whether U.S. adults reported that their alcohol intake had changed in the past 30 days compared to their drinking behaviors prior to COVID-19, and the reasons given for any perceived changes in their consumption (Aim 3). However, although almost two-thirds of the sample reported that their alcohol consumption had increased during COVID-19, it should be noted that 12.8% of the participants reported that their alcohol consumption had decreased. One factor in their decreased consumption might be that a larger percentage of these individuals were males without children.
Do some people have a higher risk for AUD triggered by events like the pandemic?
“Alcohol has diverse adverse effects throughout the body, including on all cells of the immune system, that lead to increased risk of serious infections,” said Dr. E. Jennifer Edelman, a Yale Medicine addiction medicine specialist. However, the 2021 study mentioned above suggests that people who drink alcohol often are more likely to develop acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) during COVID-19 hospitalization. In the meantime, healthcare providers should take alcohol intolerance into account when evaluating and treating post-COVID symptoms. Soon after, the World Health Organization (WHO) also suggested that people cut back on drinking, since alcohol can increase the risk of experiencing complications from COVID-19. The increase in drinking was seen among both men and women and across all race and ethnic groups. In 2022, 69.3% of Americans reported some alcohol consumption in the previous year, a slight increase from 69% in 2020 and 66.34% in 2018.
These symptoms can occur when mixing alcohol with many common over-the-counter pain relievers, as well as certain cold and allergy medications. According to the European WHO, alcohol plays no role in supporting the immune system to fight a viral infection. Drinking alcohol does not reduce the chance of acquiring SARS-CoV-2 or developing severe illness from COVID-19. Facing the COVID-19 (new coronavirus disease) pandemic, countries must take decisive action to stop the spread of the virus. NIAAA supports a wide range of research on alcohol use and its effects on health and wellbeing.
Although the increases in alcohol sales did not remain at these levels, overall data for that time period showed that in-store purchases were up by 21% and online alcohol sales by 234% compared to 2019. It is unclear, however, whether individuals had been increasing their alcohol consumption or only stockpiling alcoholic beverages. Because of substantial and unexpected social and economic changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, many people turned to alcohol and other drugs to cope with those stressors.
Read stories about the efforts underway to prevent, detect, and treat COVID-19 and its effects on our health. This review looks at alcohol-related policies during the COVID-19 pandemic across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Learn how NIH has improved basic understanding of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and sped up the development of COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, and testing.
While hand sanitizer containing alcohol may kill the virus on surfaces, drinking alcohol doesn’t cure or prevent a COVID-19 infection. When stress exceeds a certain limit, it might trigger brain inflammation, resulting in symptoms like those seen in ME/CFS, including alcohol intolerance. Ongoing research, including advanced brain scans, aims to further investigate these connections. Some evidence suggests that post-COVID-19 fatigue syndrome may share characteristics with ME/CFS, a condition where approximately 4 out of 5 people exhibit alcohol intolerance. However, due to the limited available data on post-COVID-19 alcohol intolerance, it’s unclear whether it’s a temporary or long-term symptom.
