“There have already been reports about how common this disease is in patients with chronic fatigue,” Dr. Hector Bonilla, administrator of the Stanford Clinic and lead author of the study, told Nexstar. One patient, a man in his 60s, reported several symptoms after contracting COVID-19, including headaches “characterized by a feeling of pressure at the top and back of the head.” However, he had never had a problem with alcohol consumption before. Another woman said she used to be able to drink seven cocktails a night without serious consequences, but since COVID-19 she is experiencing “horrible” effects after just one drink, including a worse hangover.
Viruses like COVID-19 can weaken the blood-brain barrier, a lining of cells in the brain’s blood vessels that helps keep pathogens out, making you more susceptible to the effects of alcohol, Bonilla said. “When the brain barrier is exposed, the brain is more susceptible to events happening in the body,” Bonilla said, “so any inflammatory reaction can be amplified.”
Scientists have also discovered that COVID-19 can cause an imbalance in a patient’s gut microbiome. This can affect a number of important functions and possibly affect the way the body processes alcohol. According to Dr. Robert Groysman of the COVID Institute in Irving, Texas, increased sensitivity to alcohol is associated with damage to the energy-producing mitochondria in the liver. “I think the liver is just not able to process alcohol as well as it used to. These toxins are not metabolized properly,” Groysman said.
As the study authors noted, mitochondria, which are responsible for providing energy to cells, can be severely damaged during COVID infection and for a long time afterward. And if liver enzymes cannot rely on mitochondria to drive important processes in the organ, the ability to metabolize toxins is suppressed, the researchers concluded.
