Q+A: Drinking Away the 5 Senses

Question posed by Michael Glab: Does binge drinking have lasting adverse effects on any of the five senses?
First, we need to define binge drinking; though there is no common ground the exact amount of alcohol that constitutes a binge, many quantify it as 5 drinks for men or four drinks for women over a couple hours (or about the time we order waffle fries with bacon, sour cream, and pulled pork at Grand Central). We all know the short term effects include impaired judgment (waking up next to someone resembling Uncle Buck) and decreased inhibitions (throwing grape sodas at people just cause you feel like it). Binge drinking has also been associated with neurocognitive deficits of frontal lobe processing (motor skills) and impaired working memory as well as delayed auditory and verbal memory deficits in the short or long term. In young men, excessive alcohol is often the cause of elevated blood pressure that can lead to heart damage, kidney damage, stroke, erectile dysfunction and destroy pretty much every other organ. It can also be mentioned that alcohol is directly toxic to the heart, and large quantities cause the heart to dilate, making it a less efficient pump and posing a risk for future heart failure. I must also mention the fact that it can cause cirrhosis of the liver, brain atrophy, stomach and colonic inflammation, inflammation of the pancreas (one of the most painful of all) and cause psychological effects. In regard to the five senses, wernicke-korsakoff syndrome causes the triad of difficulty walking, vision changes, and impaired memory. This would happen following many many binges and is linked to deficiency in a vitamin called thiamine. It can also cause peripheral neuropathies leading to numbness and tingling in the hands and feet. Withdrawal (if an alcoholic) can lead to seizures and hallucinations. Deficits in retrieval of verbal and nonverbal information and in visuospatial functioning were evident in youths with histories of heavy drinking during early and middle adolescence. Anyway, to end this long post drinking may have effects on touch and sight, but it should mostly spare taste, smell and hearing unless it causes some sort of stroke. Small quantities of alcohol have shown to help with cholesterol and cognitive function, but frequent binge drinking is almost always harmful (especially when you refuse to back down from the challenge to eat a third burrito with extra sour cream).