However, if you have kidney disease, you need to be mindful of how much you drink and the downstream effects that alcohol can have on your body. Data from 10,030 participants were extracted from a de-identified dataset for analysis, and 9724 participants who had baseline data on alcohol consumption were included in our cohort. After excluding participants without data on serum Cr at baseline and the sixth phase of follow-up, data from 5729 participants were available for analysis. Though some may be more prone to kidney failure and disease than others, there are still measures you can take to ensure healthy kidney functioning.

Abnormal immunoreaction and renal tubular dysfunction to alcohol consumption

• According to a 2022 review, symptoms do not usually manifest until stage 4 or 5 of the disease.
• This indicates that long-term ethyl alcohol consumption can activate both intrinsic and extrinsic pathways of apoptosis in the kidneys (Figure 1).
• This can cause a sudden drop in kidney function known as “acute kidney injury.” When this happens, dialysis is needed until a person’s kidney function returns to normal.
• Experimental studies suggest that heavy alcohol consumption induces IgA kidney disease (Smith et al. 1990).

Hepatorenal syndrome may appear in patients afflicted with any severe liver disease, but in the United States, studies most often have identified alcoholic cirrhosis as the underlying disorder. Major clinical features of hepatorenal syndrome include a marked decrease in urine flow, almost no sodium excretion and, usually, hyponatremia and ascites. Blood urea nitrogen (BUN) levels and serum concentrations of the waste product creatinine are somewhat elevated, but rarely to the degree seen in patients with end-stage kidney failure when kidney disease is the primary disorder. Judgments based on such relatively modest BUN and serum creatinine increases often underestimate kidney dysfunction in patients with hepatorenal syndrome, however, because malnourished cirrhotic patients tend to have low levels of urea and creatinine.

What does kidney pain from alcohol feel like?

As a consequence, oxidative stress not only propagates kidney failure, but it also contributes to the progression of chronic heart failure (Pacher et al. 2005) and leads to a vicious cycle in alcohol-induced cardiovascular complications. Kidney pain after drinking alcohol may occur due to acute kidney injury or an infection. Moderate drinking should not cause kidney pain, but binge drinking or frequent drinking may cause kidney problems. Although light-to-moderate alcohol consumption may not pose a risk to patients with CKD, the patients’ condition needs to be considered.

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This abnormality may reflect the severity of liver disease, but the available data do not allow correlation of kidney impairment with the degree of clinical signs of liver disease, such as ascites or jaundice. Chronic alcohol consumption may cause both fluid and solutes to accumulate, thereby increasing the overall volume of body fluids. In turn, such expansion of body fluid volume can contribute to high blood pressure, a condition often seen among chronic alcoholic patients. In the absence of ADH, segments of the kidney’s tubule system become impermeable to water, thus preventing it from being reabsorbed into the body. Under these conditions, the urine formed is dilute and electrolyte concentration in the blood simultaneously rises.

• Sanoff et al. found that consumption of a homemade alcohol, prepared by an unregulated process in Nicaragua, may be related to kidney injury among the local residents, which may related to pesticides or heavy metals contamination [114].
• Furthermore, moderate alcohol consumption appears to be harmful in patients with CKD because it increases the incidence of cerebral hemorrhages [14,89].
• In 2012, 5.9 percent of all global deaths were attributable to alcohol—7.6 percent for men and 4.0 percent for women.
• Without adequate blood flow, the kidneys struggle to remove waste products and excess fluid from the blood.
• However, the effect of ethanol on renal tubule function is not limited to sodium ions.

As early as thousands of years ago, humans had mastered the primitive aspects of brewing technology. Nowadays, many forms of ethyl alcohol are available, such as beer, wine, vodka, and other spirits, and these have become very popular among adults. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 55% of adults consume alcohol, and 140 million people worldwide have alcoholism [1,2]. In fact, alcoholism is a serious problem how does alcohol affect the kidneys in Asia, where 10.6–23.67% of men and 1.84–5.3% of women have a history of excessive alcohol consumption [3–9]. This 13-year cohort study revealed that participants with social or regular drinking habits had significantly reduced risk of the development of CKD when compared with non-drinkers. The NKF adds that most people in the United States who have both liver disease and kidney dysfunction are alcohol dependent.

7. Statistical Analysis

Special Benefits and Confounding Factors of Alcohol Consumption

• Rather, it is an umbrella term not specifically defined and refers to kidney diseases caused by alcohol use.
• Laube and colleagues (1967) suggested that both cellular enlargement and cell proliferation contribute to such nephromegaly.
• “Liver disease can have significant impacts on the kidneys,” says Dr. Bobart.
• For example, Belliere and colleagues (2015) showed a link between rhabdomyolysis and excessive macrophage infiltration in the kidney, which in turn led to pro-inflammatory marker expression and consequent tissue injury (Belliere et al. 2015).
• One form of alcohol abuse that contributes to kidney disease is binge drinking, usually defined as consuming four or five drinks within two hours.