Your body

Does alcohol affect your skin?

By GyroscopeUpdated November 15, 20264 sources

It can. The clearest link is rosacea, the redness and bumps on the cheeks and nose. In 82,737 US nurses followed for 14 years, women who drank 1 to 4 g a day had 12% more rosacea than women who never drank, and women who drank 30 g or more, about two US drinks, had 53% more. White wine and liquor showed the strongest links.

People who cut back often say their skin looks better: less puffy, less red, clearer. Most of that is personal report, and it’s hard to study. What researchers have measured is narrower, and the rosacea link is the strongest of it.

Rosacea

The study followed women in the Nurses’ Health Study II from 1991 to 2005, asking about drinking every four years. Over 14 years, 4,945 developed rosacea. Risk rose steadily with how much they drank, and the pattern held in smokers and non-smokers. The authors noted they studied the link, not the mechanism, so it shows that drinking and rosacea go together, without proving why.

The red face

About 36% of East Asians (Japanese, Chinese and Koreans) flush when they drink, mostly because a gene variant called ALDH2 slows the breakdown of acetaldehyde, the toxic chemical the body makes from alcohol. Acetaldehyde builds up and the face goes red. NCI says people with this variant who still drink have a higher risk of esophageal and head and neck cancers. Why do I get red when I drink? has more.

Sleep shows on your face

Alcohol breaks up the second half of the night and cuts REM sleep, even at about two drinks across 27 studies. The two halves of a drinking night explains it.

What we don’t know

We couldn’t find a good trial of alcohol and skin aging or acne, so nobody can say yet whether quitting reverses wrinkles. The most useful test is your own: a few weeks off, the same photos, the same light.