You can reverse much of the damage alcohol has done to your body, science says
Posted: 15 May 2026, 01:31
Alcohol can feel deeply entwined in our lives. A beer or glass of wine while catching up with friends. A cocktail at the end of a hard day. A round of toasts at a party.
It’s hard to believe that such seemingly innocent behavior reduces our immunity to infectious disease and raises the risk of cancer and other chronic diseases — but according to science, it does.
“Alcohol is inherently toxic. We use alcohol to disinfect; we use alcohol to kill organisms. So, the question is, is any amount of it safe?” said Dr. Andrew Freeman, director of cardiovascular prevention and wellness at National Jewish Health in Denver.
A growing number of studies say “no.”
In fact, the latest data finds drinking alcohol is directly responsible for 62 different disorders, including alcohol-related heart disease, psychotic disorder, gastritis, ulcers, pancreatitis and fatty liver disease, as well as more well-known conditions such as fetal alcohol syndrome and cirrhosis of the liver.
“These conditions are 100% alcohol attributable, meaning these diseases would not even exist in the world without alcohol use,” said Jürgen Rehm, a senior scientist at Institute for Mental Health Policy Research in Toronto. Rehm has conducted research on alcohol since 2003 in conjunction with the World Health Organization and scientists in the United States, Europe and the United Kingdom.
“There are another 30 diseases in which alcohol plays a role, such as breast and other cancers, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, dementia,” Rehm said. “These diseases would exist even without alcohol use, but alcohol use is responsible for a certain proportion of them.”
The body’s ability to fight infection is damaged as well. Even one drink of alcohol damages the immune system, lowering its ability to battle invaders within 20 minutes of consumption. Chronic drinking may permanently impact critical immune cells.
The health harms of alcohol are greatest for daily heavy drinkers, Rehm says, but there’s a catch: Research often defines heavy drinking as more than 40 grams pure alcohol a day for women and 60 grams a day for men. Translated, that’s 1.4 ounces of liquor for women and 2.1 ounces for men.
Just think about watching your bartender pour an ounce (or more) of spirits into your favorite cocktail and voilà — you could be on your way to being a heavy drinker that day. Booze is not limited to hard liquor, either: Red and white wine, beer, hard cider, mead, sherry, port, vermouth and sake all contain alcohol.
Just how do those drinks affect your longevity?
“Our team at the institute worked on a free app which shows how many minutes and days of life are lost with each drink,” Rehm said. “It will also show you how many minutes and days you gain when you stop drinking.”
You see, for all the sobering news of alcohol’s effects on your health, there’s a silver lining. Many of the diseases attributed to alcohol can be slowed, stopped and even reversed if action is taken soon enough. Here’s what science has found so far.
Alcohol and infectious disease
If you’re not aware of the impact of a drink on your ability to fight off infections such as colds, flu and Covid-19, that’s understandable. While the link between alcohol and pneumonia has been known since 1785, large scale discussion on the impact of liquor on immunity began in the 1990s.
Alcohol disrupts the ability of the body’s innate immune system — the one you’re born with — as well as any acquired immunity you’ve developed from exposure to other pathogens. It takes very little alcohol to immediately depress the ability of key white blood cells such as macrophages, neutrophils and natural killer cells to fight viruses, bacterial infections and cancer cells.
One binge drinking episode (typically four or more drinks in a few hours) can disrupt immune response for 24 hours. Long thought to be a problem only in teens and college-age youth, binge drinking is on the rise in the US, especially among women over 30 and adults over 65.
Fortunately, the immediate effects of alcohol on the immune system don’t last long. Depending on levels of consumption, the body bounces back within days to a week, Rehm said.
However, chronic alcohol use can stunt or kill natural killer cells and T-cells, the immune system’s elite strike force, leading to a higher vulnerability to infections such as pneumonia, HIV and tuberculosis. While long-term abstinence can help, experts say some impairments may be only partially reversible, depending on how long and how much alcohol was consumed. In fact, severe alcoholics may become immunocompromised.
Alcohol and cancer
Alcohol is the third-leading preventable cause of cancer in the US, after tobacco and obesity, according to former US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy. He issued an advisory warning in early 2025 that called for an updated warning label on alcoholic beverages.
“Alcohol is a well-established, preventable cause of cancer responsible for about 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths annually in the United States — greater than the 13,500 alcohol-associated traffic crash fatalities per year in the US — yet the majority of Americans are unaware of this risk,” Murthy said in a statement.
All types of alcohol contribute to cancer by damaging DNA and increasing chronic inflammation, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For women the top risk is alcohol-associated breast cancer. Colorectal cancer is the most frequently associated cancer related to alcohol among men.
Abstinence will stop the advance of any cancer that is caused by alcohol, but it’s not a guarantee, said Sinclair Carr, a doctoral student at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston who is affiliated with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
“Cancer takes years to develop. Therefore, you may already have cancer inside of you that was caused by alcohol, and you may still get cancer after stopping,” Carr said. “However, if you do not have any cancer inside of you and you stop drinking, you eliminate the future of any alcohol-attributable cancer.”
Wondering how long it takes to be sure that your history of regular drinking did not contribute to cancer?
“About 30 years, the same as for tobacco,” Rehm said. “If you are a relatively heavy drinker, you can think about it like this: One drink is one cigarette. Shocking, isn’t it?”
Of course, the causes of cancer are multifaceted. Still, when it comes to alcohol, cancer is a chronic disease where “stopping drinking may have good outcomes, because a lot of the harm can be reversed,” Rehm said. “The problem is that most people start thinking about stopping when they’re almost beyond the point that they experience the full benefits of reversal.”
Alcohol and brain damage
It used to be said that alcohol kills brain cells, but science today finds it destroys the connections between neurons, leading to brain shrinkage, especially in areas responsible for memory and decision-making.
One of the largest studies to date found three drinks a week raised the risk for dementia by 15% compared to one drink a week. Brain damage caused by alcohol is partly reversible, however, depending on whether the insult to the brain is acute or long-term.
“Imaging studies suggest that cerebral atrophy, the shrinking of brain tissue, may partially recover within weeks to months of stopping drinking, with measurable changes often beginning in the first few weeks,” Carr said. “Cognitive functions such as attention, executive function, and memory can also improve with abstinence.”
However, chronic heavy drinking and binge drinking appears to contribute to longer-term brain changes that are associated with an increased risk of dementia. “The available evidence does not suggest that stopping drinking fully restores someone’s dementia risk to that of a person who never drank heavily,” Carr said.
Alcohol and the heart
But wait, isn’t alcohol good for the heart — the leading killer of men and women worldwide? It is true that many studies have found a “J” shaped relationship between booze and heart health which today’s science has yet to disprove.
Low-to-moderate alcohol consumption — the small flatter part of the “J” — has a slightly positive impact on heart health, according to those studies. As the number of drinks per day rises, however, so does the risk, traveling all the way up the straight line of the “J.”
“Not only does the risk goes up with consumption, but the apparent protective effects on the heart basically disappear in people who also engage in heavy, episodic drinking,” Carr said.
A 2023 study found as little as one alcoholic drink a day increased systolic blood pressure — the top number in a blood pressure reading. Drinking alcohol if you have high blood pressure nearly doubles the risk of serious liver damage, while drinking if you have a large belly or diabetes more than triples the risk, according to a February 2025 study.
“I think there’s enough evidence now that drinking may be more harmful than beneficial,” said Freeman, the heart disease prevention cardiologist. “Most of the professional societies tell people not to start drinking, drink as little as possible if they do drink, or stop drinking altogether.” https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/14/health/a ... d-wellness
It’s hard to believe that such seemingly innocent behavior reduces our immunity to infectious disease and raises the risk of cancer and other chronic diseases — but according to science, it does.
“Alcohol is inherently toxic. We use alcohol to disinfect; we use alcohol to kill organisms. So, the question is, is any amount of it safe?” said Dr. Andrew Freeman, director of cardiovascular prevention and wellness at National Jewish Health in Denver.
A growing number of studies say “no.”
In fact, the latest data finds drinking alcohol is directly responsible for 62 different disorders, including alcohol-related heart disease, psychotic disorder, gastritis, ulcers, pancreatitis and fatty liver disease, as well as more well-known conditions such as fetal alcohol syndrome and cirrhosis of the liver.
“These conditions are 100% alcohol attributable, meaning these diseases would not even exist in the world without alcohol use,” said Jürgen Rehm, a senior scientist at Institute for Mental Health Policy Research in Toronto. Rehm has conducted research on alcohol since 2003 in conjunction with the World Health Organization and scientists in the United States, Europe and the United Kingdom.
“There are another 30 diseases in which alcohol plays a role, such as breast and other cancers, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, dementia,” Rehm said. “These diseases would exist even without alcohol use, but alcohol use is responsible for a certain proportion of them.”
The body’s ability to fight infection is damaged as well. Even one drink of alcohol damages the immune system, lowering its ability to battle invaders within 20 minutes of consumption. Chronic drinking may permanently impact critical immune cells.
The health harms of alcohol are greatest for daily heavy drinkers, Rehm says, but there’s a catch: Research often defines heavy drinking as more than 40 grams pure alcohol a day for women and 60 grams a day for men. Translated, that’s 1.4 ounces of liquor for women and 2.1 ounces for men.
Just think about watching your bartender pour an ounce (or more) of spirits into your favorite cocktail and voilà — you could be on your way to being a heavy drinker that day. Booze is not limited to hard liquor, either: Red and white wine, beer, hard cider, mead, sherry, port, vermouth and sake all contain alcohol.
Just how do those drinks affect your longevity?
“Our team at the institute worked on a free app which shows how many minutes and days of life are lost with each drink,” Rehm said. “It will also show you how many minutes and days you gain when you stop drinking.”
You see, for all the sobering news of alcohol’s effects on your health, there’s a silver lining. Many of the diseases attributed to alcohol can be slowed, stopped and even reversed if action is taken soon enough. Here’s what science has found so far.
Alcohol and infectious disease
If you’re not aware of the impact of a drink on your ability to fight off infections such as colds, flu and Covid-19, that’s understandable. While the link between alcohol and pneumonia has been known since 1785, large scale discussion on the impact of liquor on immunity began in the 1990s.
Alcohol disrupts the ability of the body’s innate immune system — the one you’re born with — as well as any acquired immunity you’ve developed from exposure to other pathogens. It takes very little alcohol to immediately depress the ability of key white blood cells such as macrophages, neutrophils and natural killer cells to fight viruses, bacterial infections and cancer cells.
One binge drinking episode (typically four or more drinks in a few hours) can disrupt immune response for 24 hours. Long thought to be a problem only in teens and college-age youth, binge drinking is on the rise in the US, especially among women over 30 and adults over 65.
Fortunately, the immediate effects of alcohol on the immune system don’t last long. Depending on levels of consumption, the body bounces back within days to a week, Rehm said.
However, chronic alcohol use can stunt or kill natural killer cells and T-cells, the immune system’s elite strike force, leading to a higher vulnerability to infections such as pneumonia, HIV and tuberculosis. While long-term abstinence can help, experts say some impairments may be only partially reversible, depending on how long and how much alcohol was consumed. In fact, severe alcoholics may become immunocompromised.
Alcohol and cancer
Alcohol is the third-leading preventable cause of cancer in the US, after tobacco and obesity, according to former US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy. He issued an advisory warning in early 2025 that called for an updated warning label on alcoholic beverages.
“Alcohol is a well-established, preventable cause of cancer responsible for about 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths annually in the United States — greater than the 13,500 alcohol-associated traffic crash fatalities per year in the US — yet the majority of Americans are unaware of this risk,” Murthy said in a statement.
All types of alcohol contribute to cancer by damaging DNA and increasing chronic inflammation, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For women the top risk is alcohol-associated breast cancer. Colorectal cancer is the most frequently associated cancer related to alcohol among men.
Abstinence will stop the advance of any cancer that is caused by alcohol, but it’s not a guarantee, said Sinclair Carr, a doctoral student at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston who is affiliated with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
“Cancer takes years to develop. Therefore, you may already have cancer inside of you that was caused by alcohol, and you may still get cancer after stopping,” Carr said. “However, if you do not have any cancer inside of you and you stop drinking, you eliminate the future of any alcohol-attributable cancer.”
Wondering how long it takes to be sure that your history of regular drinking did not contribute to cancer?
“About 30 years, the same as for tobacco,” Rehm said. “If you are a relatively heavy drinker, you can think about it like this: One drink is one cigarette. Shocking, isn’t it?”
Of course, the causes of cancer are multifaceted. Still, when it comes to alcohol, cancer is a chronic disease where “stopping drinking may have good outcomes, because a lot of the harm can be reversed,” Rehm said. “The problem is that most people start thinking about stopping when they’re almost beyond the point that they experience the full benefits of reversal.”
Alcohol and brain damage
It used to be said that alcohol kills brain cells, but science today finds it destroys the connections between neurons, leading to brain shrinkage, especially in areas responsible for memory and decision-making.
One of the largest studies to date found three drinks a week raised the risk for dementia by 15% compared to one drink a week. Brain damage caused by alcohol is partly reversible, however, depending on whether the insult to the brain is acute or long-term.
“Imaging studies suggest that cerebral atrophy, the shrinking of brain tissue, may partially recover within weeks to months of stopping drinking, with measurable changes often beginning in the first few weeks,” Carr said. “Cognitive functions such as attention, executive function, and memory can also improve with abstinence.”
However, chronic heavy drinking and binge drinking appears to contribute to longer-term brain changes that are associated with an increased risk of dementia. “The available evidence does not suggest that stopping drinking fully restores someone’s dementia risk to that of a person who never drank heavily,” Carr said.
Alcohol and the heart
But wait, isn’t alcohol good for the heart — the leading killer of men and women worldwide? It is true that many studies have found a “J” shaped relationship between booze and heart health which today’s science has yet to disprove.
Low-to-moderate alcohol consumption — the small flatter part of the “J” — has a slightly positive impact on heart health, according to those studies. As the number of drinks per day rises, however, so does the risk, traveling all the way up the straight line of the “J.”
“Not only does the risk goes up with consumption, but the apparent protective effects on the heart basically disappear in people who also engage in heavy, episodic drinking,” Carr said.
A 2023 study found as little as one alcoholic drink a day increased systolic blood pressure — the top number in a blood pressure reading. Drinking alcohol if you have high blood pressure nearly doubles the risk of serious liver damage, while drinking if you have a large belly or diabetes more than triples the risk, according to a February 2025 study.
“I think there’s enough evidence now that drinking may be more harmful than beneficial,” said Freeman, the heart disease prevention cardiologist. “Most of the professional societies tell people not to start drinking, drink as little as possible if they do drink, or stop drinking altogether.” https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/14/health/a ... d-wellness