Alcoholic beverages do not warm up the body
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Winter is here and the Christmas markets are open. It's cold and raining or snowing. A mulled wine, a hot punch or a Feuerzangenbowle at the Christmas market would be just the thing to warm you up. Or would it?
Vital bodily functions in humans only run optimally at a certain, constant body temperature. Normal body temperature, also known as core body temperature, is between 36.5 and 37.5 °C.
However, if the body temperature drops in cold weather, the body tries to maintain the temperature of the "body core". The blood vessels in the extremities reduce blood flow to the external parts of the body in order to ensure blood flow and heat supply to the vital internal organs. This is why we get cold hands and feet.
However, this temperature protection of the body is impaired by alcohol consumption. After drinking alcohol, there is a pleasantly warm feeling on the skin due to the dilated blood vessels on the surface of the body. However, the body now releases more heat energy to the outside, as the warm blood from the "body core" is pumped into blood vessels in the skin, cools down there and flows back again. As a result, the internal organs are less well supplied with blood and the body temperature drops more quickly.
The result: the body freezes, while the blood vessels on the surface of the skin, dilated by alcohol, signal a supposedly warm feeling to the brain. This can weaken the immune and defence system and you can easily catch a cold.
Therefore, only consume alcoholic drinks in moderation and prefer to warm up with non-alcoholic hot drinks such as tea, cocoa, hot juices, etc.).
The same also applies to ice-cold alcoholic drinks in summer. Read our news here.
