This is why alcohol makes you go to the toilet so often

You may recognize it: you have a nice party or are having a drink with friends and after a few glasses you constantly have to go to the toilet. Very annoying, because it doesn’t seem to stop after that. You seem to have to go to the bathroom every ten minutes. But why is it that alcohol makes you have to go to the toilet more often?

Constant toilet visits courtesy of alcoholic drinks

We all know that alcohol is actually not that good for us at all. A drink once in a while is fine, but our body doesn’t like it when we drink a lot of alcohol. And that also has to do with this.

That you often have to go to the toilet due to alcoholic drinks, partly because it is liquid. After a liter of water you often have to go to the toilet quickly. Your bladder generally fits between 350 and 500 milliliters. Now it is not the case that all the fluid you ingest goes to your bladder: you sweat out part of it and your body absorbs fluid. During a night out you often drink faster than normal during the day. So you get much more fluid than your body needs at that moment and it all goes straight to your bladder.

For example, alcohol causes you to dehydrate

But that’s not the only reason why alcohol makes you urinate so often. Alcohol inhibits the production of a diuretic hormone called vasopressin. That hormone normally causes your body to retain water. If you have less of the hormone, your kidneys will excrete more water. That’s where all those trips to the toilet come from. And that is also one of the adverse effects of alcohol: you become dehydrated because your body continues to drain water. That is also the reason that you can wake up in the morning with a hefty hangover.

Wondering why that hangover gets worse with age? You can read that here.