Kidneys: Why Alcohol Makes Us Pee

"Breaking the seal", a term coined for the first visit to the bathroom after having consumed a sufficient amount of Jack Daniels. Keep in mind, you can use this term The increased activity of our bladders after drinking is a well known fact for most drinkers, but does anyone know why this really happens? From a simple standpoint, we know that alcohol is toxic to our bodies, and thus our biological system would want to flush it out as conveniently, or in other cases, as fast as possible. Hence the upchucking when you've had a few too many.

Kidneys

To start, we'll look at the role of the kidneys. Whether you know this or not, the kidneys are two organs located near the back of our thoracic cavity (mid-section), just below our ribs and they filter our blood. They remove certain wastes and water, which form our urine. Looking at a kidney cross-section, you will see that the kidney's contain millions of small structures called nephrons. This is where the actual filtering occurs. The glomerulus (the round shape to the right) is where the blood is filtered through. In the glomerulus, certain types of biological entities pass through while other do not. For example, protein is not able to pass, while urea is. Diseases involving the glomerulus may cause blood in the urine visibly, but protein may also be lost. A potential cause for this is high blood pressure, which forces the larger entities to pass through the filter, but blood in the urine is not always serious.

After the glomerulus, the wastes travel through tubules. These tubules are where water is reabsorbed back into the blood stream. This is where alcohol comes into play.

Alcohol and Hormones

Hormones are not just chemicals that cause PMS and grouchiness in women, they help organs function all over the body and increase efficiency. The spcific hormone I want to talk about is anti-diuretic hormone or ADH. ADH is a hormone that acts on the kidneys, usually when the body is dehydrated, to conserve water. It acts by adjusting the permeability of the tubules in the nephron, thus less water is lost and urine becomes more concentrated.

The role of alcohol on the body (or one of them) is to inhibit the secretion of ADH from the pituitary gland (a hormonal gland), which leaves the kidney tubule permeable to water. This is why alcohol makes you have to go.

So the next time you're taking too many shots of Smirnoff Lime, it's best to just go, when you gotta go.