BY SANDRA GUY

Chronic alcohol consumption doesn’t just lead to a whole host of health woes, including teeth, brain, liver, pancreas and immune system damage, it also can lead to a deficiency of folic acid — an essential B vitamin.

Folate helps the body make healthy new red blood cells. Red blood cells carry oxygen throughout the body. And an inadequate amount of red blood cells can lead to anemia.

Folate is also important to repair and synthesize DNA and other genetic material, and it’s necessary for cells to divide.

It’s especially important for pregnant women to get enough folate because being deficient can lead to severe situations such as the baby developing spina bifida or being born without parts of its brain or skull.

In fact, chronic heavy drinkers suffer a double health whammy: They usually eat an inadequate amount of nutrients, and lose the benefits of those they do consume.

The process of metabolizing alcohol requires nutrients. As the liver decreases its supply of these nutrients, the blood stream is called upon to replenish the supply. As a result, body cells are deprived of critical nutrients and normal body functions suffer.

Alcohol itself can interfere with the nutrition process by affecting use, digestion, storage and excretion of nutrients. Most people may not even realize that the body starts breaking down food into molecules starting in the mouth. The process goes on in the stomach and intestines, as well as the pancreas.

Alcohol interferes with the body’s vital work of breaking down and absorbing nutrients. It does so in several ways, including damaging cells that should absorb the nutrients; impairing the pancreas from secreting digestive enzymes; and upsetting the body’s gut health, which is proving more and more vital to healthy aging.