Why do Asians turn red when they drink, and is there anyway it can be prevented?
They turn red when they drink for the same reason that everybody else does: one of alcohol’s effects is to reroute blood to the surface of the body (medical types can explain why). This is why everybody gets flushed when they get drunk, and also why they tend to feel warm and start sweating. Asian has nothing to do with it.
Fine. Perhaps I wasn’t precise enough, but I meant that redness tends to be more common in Asians. Why?
Huey
It is because people of north-asian descent produce less of the enzyme Aldehyde Dehydrogenase, which is the second in the metabolic series which breaks alcohol down in the liver. Because of this the first matabolite, acetaldehyde, builds up to much higher levels in the blood stream causing flushing and nausia.
It’s genetics. Many Asians (and Native Americans) are particulary sensitivity to alcohol. It’s a genetic thing that does not occur in Caucasions or those of African descent.
Haj
i have a theory on this :
industrial revolution didn’t happen in China or Japan so water was safe to drink , in Europe and the US industry took off like a rocket rendering water dangerous , cure?
they stuck lots of alcohol to kill the germs and such and thus have gotten used to it over the past 200 years while the industrial revolution type thing has only happened in the last 60 years in Asia so people there are not so used to it , and anyway modern industrial processes are cleaner
(mostly) than ones of 1800s so water is still safe to drink
mirage gives the answer that is generally regarded as true in the scientific and medical community.
I’ve never heard geepee’s rather quaint hypothesis before, but would not tend to give it any weight. Both Europe and the Far East have had alcohol since time out of mind, and the dangers of contaminated water are generally from endemic bacterial and parasitic infections, not industrial contaminants. And I know of no program that added alcohol to water to render it safer to drink.
Mirage is correct, but this only applies to some Asians. I know a lot of Asian people, and approximately half of them (my girlfriend included) only have to even look at a half full glass of low-alcohol beer and they turn bright crimson and get very silly and giggly very quickly. The other Asian people I know don’t suffer these effects, can drink all night, and behave the same way as Westerners do when they drink (ie. pretty awful. 
).
I have heard it before… in a slightly modified form. As you say Qadgop, both areas (Asia and Europe) have had both alcohol and bacterial and parasitic infections for ages.
The version I’ve heard suggests that in the West the tendency (from ancient times) was to drink fermented beverages (beer, stout, wine) or water mixed with the same. (The diets I’ve seen for medieval folk tends to bear out copious beer/watered beer consumption). In the East the tendency was to boil the water instead. (Tea).
As an aside, IIRC, in the middle east there’s a transition point where the wine of the Persians gives way to coffee consumption with the rise of Islam.
Whilst I certainly can’t provide a cite, this form of the hypothesis does somewhat address your comments.
I would restate that only some, perhaps a majority, of Asians get the “Sake Suntan” and it varies within ethnic groups. For example, I had plenty of Japanese friends who could pound copious amounts of alcohol and not turn red. Other Japanese that would take a tiny sip of beer, and be instantly red. Ditto for the Chinese, Thai, Malays I’ve known.
My wife is Shanghaiese and doesn’t turn red until way into her cups. Her mother looks like a beet after about half a beer.
I’ve also been to many many banquets where the obligatory toasting went on for hours. My Asian counterparts didn’t think I was drunk because I wasn’t red. Often times I was just plastered.
Just my own personal input here: I’m half Japanese, and I am sensitive to alcohol. I turn beet red after drinking just the smallest amount, and I’m talking wine coolers and chocolately liquers. I simply cannot stand the taste of anything harder.
just MY theory not anything i read , living in HK for most of the 90s and part of the 80s going out drinking or pubbing/ bar hopping isn’t as popular and thus we have not developed as much a tolerance to alcohol , still if 2-3 pints can get me drunk saves me $$$$$$$$$$$ on the English folks who still live there who drink 9-15 pints to get drunk (esp since beer good beer is $$$$$$$$$$$)