How to abstain from alcohol after vaccination and whether to switch to non-alcoholic wine
Moscow 24 columnist, fitness expert and TV presenter Eduard Kanevsky told how to abstain from alcohol for a long time after vaccination and whether there is any harm from non-alcoholic wine and champagne.
Photo: depositphotos/ufabizphoto
We live in strange, I would even say, troubled times. The year, which began like the previous ones, in its usual rhythm turned into a nightmare for all humanity. Borders are closed, millions of people had to change their habits and even professions in order to maintain the opportunity to work and earn money.
And now there is light at the end of the tunnel: the COVID-19 vaccine has been tested and successfully launched. But those who are planning to get vaccinated soon will not be allowed to drink alcohol even on New Year’s Day. Moreover, according to various sources, you will have to abstain from forty days to two months. The reason to be sad is indeed justified, because for many, alcohol is an obligatory component of this holiday.
According to tradition, at a minimum, you need to make a wish during the chimes and drink champagne under the New Year's fireworks. And now it turns out that those who have been vaccinated are deprived of this last joy?
Probably, no matter how cynical it may sound, but as a promoter of a healthy lifestyle, the news did not upset me, but rather pleased me. Firstly, because I have always been against drinking alcohol, including on holidays. Secondly, the opportunity to vaccinate the population against the virus as soon as possible and return to a full life outweighs the need to give up alcohol on the night of January 1 and the next nine days off.
But my opinion (no matter how logical it may be) is one thing, but people who are used to drinking on New Year’s Eve find it difficult to resist the temptation. Moreover, the whole year already consisted of restrictions and prohibitions.
Photo: depositphotos/EdZbarzhyvetsky
But what to do if you can’t risk your health? Solving this problem, I turned my attention to alcoholic drinks without ethyl alcohol. “Surrogate,” many will say to this. But let's figure out whether non-alcoholic wine really is such and what makes it special. Is it harmless to health due to its composition and can it replace full-fledged alcohol when you really want it?
To begin with, it is important to understand why alcoholic beverages were banned. It's simple: any alcohol contains ethyl alcohol, which in any quantity is a toxin, and the liver must combat its negative effects. The liver is an organ that constantly neutralizes and removes all kinds of bad substances from the body. Vaccination implies a heavy load on the immune system, and therefore on the body as a whole, including the liver, so drinking is not recommended. Those who are taking a course of antibiotics know that drinking alcohol during this period is doubly dangerous to their health. So the recommendation is quite reasonable.
Let's get back to alcohol. If we take wine, for example, we learned how to remove alcohol from it a hundred years ago. Moreover, the process of removing alcohol is very simple: the drink is heated to 70 degrees, and the alcohol evaporates. It is very important that the wine still retains its taste properties, as well as the content of nutrients in it. But yes, you won’t get drunk from such wine.
As for the more New Year's drink, champagne, the creation process here is approximately the same. Moreover, non-alcoholic champagne can be dry, sweet and semi-sweet; you won’t get drunk from it, regardless of the amount of drink you drink. But it is precisely in quantity that those who want to feel at least a little intoxicated will try to get at least some portion of alcohol.
But in any non-alcoholic wine a small percentage of alcohol still remains. And this is where the main danger of drinking such drinks lies: they contain a large amount of carbohydrates. Their excess provokes the development of obesity. The New Year's table is not only drinks, but many traditional dishes based on mayonnaise, eggs, potatoes, and salty foods. In other words, the total calorie content of your diet increases significantly during the holidays. Even without being tied to alcohol, you can easily gain extra pounds, which is really bad for your overall health.
It’s easy to conclude that your health is more important than any holiday; it’s simply not worth risking it for the sake of intoxication. I think one bad year is more than enough to endure a little and then return to the normal life that we miss so much.
Alcohol coding by injection: types
There are five types of injections used for alcoholism. The main difference is in the localization of the injection, which is chosen by the narcologist.
- into a vein
This method is considered one of the most effective, but the risk of complications is higher. More often the human psyche suffers, and in addition there are disturbances in brain activity. Therefore, before the procedure, a full examination is carried out in order to identify pathologies at the initial level that may become contraindications to this type of injection.
The following side effects occur with intravenous coding:
- heat;
- elevated temperature;
- cardiopalmus.
Symptoms disappear within an hour and a half after administering the medicine.
- Intramuscular injections
A safe option, since the drug enters the bloodstream gradually, thereby not causing any adverse reactions.
- Under the skin
In this case, the medicine is injected into the subscapular region. After the procedure, alcoholics may have a fever. This is a standard reaction to the drug and goes away within two to three days.
- To the liver
Because of the name, you might think that the medicine is injected into the liver, but in reality it is an intravenous injection. But it affects the liver and prevents it from producing the enzyme that is responsible for the breakdown of ethanol. Because of this, alcohol intoxication occurs.
The technique is not popular among patients because it causes serious health problems.
- Injection in the shoulder blade
The injection gives the desired result, but is not in demand. It involves administering a medication based on disulfiram, which prevents the body from processing alcohol. The peculiarity of the procedure is that the drug is slowly absorbed into the blood, and therefore the effect lasts from one to five years.
Often drugs are used in the form of a gel. Despite the advantages of such coding, it is rarely used, since it is painful and is performed under local anesthesia.
Viral hepatitis B
Viral hepatitis B (HBV) is an inflammatory liver disease that is caused by the DNA-containing hepatitis B virus. Every year, about 58 million patients with only the acute form of infection are registered worldwide. In total, according to WHO experts, in different countries of the world the total number of hepatitis B patients and carriers exceeds 1 billion. And according to the Center for the Study of Clinical and Sexually Transmitted Diseases (France), more than 2 billion people are currently infected with hepatitis B in the world.
In the vast majority of cases, subject to timely diagnosis and adequate treatment, patients with acute hepatitis B successfully recover and acquire lifelong immunity to re-infection. But if an infected person has reduced immunity, the acute period of the disease passes unnoticed, then gradually the course of the infection drags on and becomes chronic. In this case, the disease progresses slowly and can subsequently develop into cirrhosis (risk 10-20%) and even liver cancer.
The source of infection for hepatitis B is a sick person or a virus carrier. The virus is transmitted through any biological fluid of the body, but primarily through blood. Transmission of the virus occurs through damaged skin and mucous membranes, through blood transfusions of infected blood, the use of drugs from infected blood and poorly sterilized instruments. It is also possible to transmit hepatitis B to a newborn from an infected mother during or after childbirth. HBV is extremely infectious.
In the body of a patient with the hepatitis B virus, markers are detected by laboratory methods - antigens and antibodies, the determination of which provides various information, including diagnostic and prognostic. Depending on the combination of these markers, one can judge the activity and danger of the process. With an active viral process, the natural course of the disease most often leads to the formation of fibrosis in the liver with transition to cirrhosis or primary liver cancer.
That is why, when viral hepatitis B is detected, it is recommended to conduct a series of laboratory tests to determine treatment tactics. All these tests for hepatitis B can be performed in a medical laboratory, but remember - only the attending physician can correctly interpret the results obtained.
Hepatitis B markers
Surface antigen (HBsAg, Australian antigen) is the main serological marker of HBV. It can be detected in the blood during acute or chronic hepatitis. This antigen most often triggers the formation of antibodies to HBsAg as part of the normal immune response to infection.
A positive blood test for HBs antigen means the presence of acute or chronic HBV infection (carriage of HBs antigen) and the possibility of transmitting the virus to healthy people.
A negative test means there is a high probability that there is no hepatitis B virus in the blood.
Anti-surface antigen antibodies (anti-HBsAg) are protective antibodies that are produced in response to hepatitis B surface antigen entering the body.
A positive test means that the person is protected by immunity from the hepatitis B virus for one of two reasons:
- Was successfully vaccinated against hepatitis B;
- The body has coped with the acute infection and the person cannot become infected with hepatitis again.
Hepatitis B nuclear “e” antigen (HBeAg) is a protein that indicates active replication of HBV in liver tissue.
A positive test means the blood is highly infectious and there is a high risk of transmitting the virus to others. Thus, its detection in the blood of a pregnant woman indicates a high risk of infection of the newborn with HBV. This marker is also used to monitor the effectiveness of treatment for chronic hepatitis B. In most patients with chronic hepatitis with high activity of the process, HBeAg persists for a long period (up to several years).
Antibodies to HBeAg (anti-HBe) are proteins that are produced in the body in response to the hepatitis B “e” antigen.
In the case of favorable development of the hepatitis B virus in patients, HBeAg is gradually replaced in the blood by antibodies to it (HBeAg seroconversion - anti-HBe). At an early stage of seroconversion, both of these markers can be detected simultaneously.
The disappearance of HBeAg and the rapid increase in anti-HBe titer in the patient virtually eliminates the threat of HBV chronicization. The absence of such dynamics and the detection of monotonically low concentrations of anti-HBe, on the contrary, may indicate the development of chronic HBV with low replicative activity (HBeAg-negative chronic HBV).
Long-term persistence of HBeAg in the patient's blood and the absence of anti-HBe may be an indicator of the threat of developing chronic hepatitis with high replicative activity of HBV (HBeAg-positive chronic hepatitis). Thus, dynamic control of the HBeAg-antiHBe system allows one to reliably predict its outcome even in the acute stage of hepatitis B.
Anti-core antigen (anti-HBcor) antibodies are antibodies that are produced in the body in response to the presence of part of the hepatitis virus in the body, called the “core antigen” or “core antigen”. The meaning of this test often depends on the results of two other tests: anti-HBs and HBsAg.
IgM antibody to core antigen (anti-HBcorM) is used to detect acute infection.
A positive test means infection with the hepatitis B virus within the last 6-12 months or an exacerbation of a chronic infection.
The described HBV markers are determined in clinical practice by ELISA and allow correct determination of treatment tactics for acute and chronic hepatitis B.
Determination of viral hepatitis B DNA
HBV DNA determination is a test for the presence of hepatitis B virus DNA in a patient’s blood using the PCR method.
A positive test means that the virus is actively reproducing in the human body and such a person carries a potential risk of becoming infected with the hepatitis B virus.
HBV DNA quantification (viral load) is a test to determine the number of units of hepatitis B virus DNA that are present in a given volume of blood.
A quantitative method for determining the content of viral DNA in plasma provides important information about the intensity of disease development, the effectiveness of drug therapy, and the development of resistance to antiviral drugs. Not only the dosage of drugs, but also the duration of treatment and prognosis depend on the viral load.
Treatment of viral hepatitis B
Antiviral drugs are the mainstay of treatment for hepatitis B virus. The goal of this treatment is to suppress the replication of the virus, reduce inflammation and regression of the fibrotic process, and prevent cirrhosis and cancer.
Interferon drugs and nucleoside analogues are used to treat chronic hepatitis B. The treatment tactics with certain drugs are determined by the attending physician depending on a number of circumstances, primarily, the activity of the viral process, as well as the condition of the liver according to biochemical tests, ultrasound and the degree of fibrosis. To determine the degree of fibrosis, there are safe and informative methods - elastometry (using a special device) and fibrotest (based on markers of fibrosis in the blood).
Currently, modern antiviral drugs with direct antiviral action have been introduced into clinical practice - nucleoside analogues, which are administered in the form of tablets, quickly and effectively suppress the replication of the virus. Most of them do not have pronounced side effects, which distinguishes them favorably from interferons.
Hepatitis B virus can be accompanied by virus D, which enters the human body only together with virus B. This virus quickly and often causes irreversible changes in the liver and requires antiviral therapy as early as possible to prevent the formation of cirrhosis.
Treatment of viral hepatitis B is long-term, repeated courses, if the virus is activated after a successful course of antiviral treatment. Hepatitis B virus requires lifelong control. Only in this case can a normal, healthy liver be preserved forever without cirrhosis or liver cancer. Viral hepatitis B can be successfully combated.
At the medical center, our patients can undergo all the necessary laboratory tests to determine the hepatitis B virus, have an ultrasound of the abdominal organs, and have a consultation with an infectious disease specialist (hepatologist). Our specialists have the highest qualification category, regularly participate in international hepatology conferences and have clinical experience in modern therapy for chronic hepatitis B.
