Asians & Alcohol

[xiix]

Do a statistically significant number of Asian (pc term?) people lack an enzyme that helps break down alcohol or is this yet another booze-related myth?

[Squink]

Alcohol dehydrogenase

Alcohol Dehydrogenase activity varies between men and women, and between populations from different areas of the world. For example, women are unable to process alcohol at the same rate as men because they do not express the Alcohol Dehydrogenase as highly. The level of activity may not only be dependent on level of expression but due to allelic diversity among the population. These allelic differences have been linked to region of origin. For example, populations from Europe have been found to express an allele for the alcohol dehydrogenase gene that makes it much more active than those found in populations from Asia or the Americas.

[xiix]

thank you Squink

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

@xiix

Do a statistically significant number of Asian (pc term?) people lack an enzyme that helps break down alcohol or is this yet another booze-related myth?

Yes. I think the rate is almost one in three Asian peoples that have this inability to process alcohol like most people do.

I have a friend that suffers from this whom is Asian and he gets extremely RED when he drinks more than a beer or two. Doesn’t stop him though. Trooper he is.

[Number]

Cecil concurs

When the liver processes ethanol, the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase first converts it to acetaldehyde. In most people a second enzyme, aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH), quickly converts the acetaldehyde to harmless acetate. But roughly 50 percent of Japanese and other east Asians and some American Indians (but practically no Europeans or Africans) have a mutated gene that impairs ALDH activity. In these people, even a modest dose of alcohol, imbibed or endogenous, leads to acetaldehyde buildup and unpleasant symptoms: facial flushing, palpitations, dizziness, nausea, headache, and confusion. As acetaldehyde builds up, some is converted back to ethanol, retarding BAC decline. Eventually various enzymes slowly clear the acetaldehyde and the symptoms dissipate.

[Neptunian_Slug]

@Number

Cecil concurs

50% of Japanese? That’s amazing. I guess all of my Japanese business colleagues were in the lucky 50% that had no problems drinking alcohol. Whether or not they had a drinking problem is a question for another day.

[Staggerlee]

An English friend of mine who’s spent several years in Japan, China etc speculates that another factor is simply the average body mass of your Far East Asian - the smaller body mass would lead to a lower tolerance of booze.