Is Alcohol Sabotaging Your Gains? Here’s What Science Says
Moderate alcohol consumption has been a topic of considerable debate among sports nutrition and physiology researchers, particularly in the context of muscle growth. While some studies indicate that moderate alcohol intake might not significantly impair overload ‐ induced muscle hypertrophy, other research highlights a breadth of negative effects associated with chronic or excessive consumption. This article will examine both the potential pros and cons of alcohol consumption for muscle growth, drawing on a range of evidence from the literature. On the potential positive side, some evidence suggests that moderate alcohol consumption may not necessarily blunt the hypertrophic response to muscle overload. For instance, Steiner et al. (Steiner et al., 2015) demonstrated that when rodents were subjected to overload-induced muscle growth, moderate alcohol intake did not impair the anabolic processes or protein synthesis essential for hypertrophy. Such findings indicate that...