Tonight I was out drinking with my friend who’s half Korean. She said that she has a slight allergy to alcohol, but most Asians do. They’re missing some kind of enzyme or something. I had never heard this before.
I wasn’t willing to dispute this when she told me, as obviously she’d know better than I would, but it struck me as odd. How do you explain sake? Karaoke bars? Jiuling?
Unless Asians are masochistic, or my friend was mistaken, can anyone give me the straight dope here?
If thats true then no one ever told my former Japanese roomate because he and his large group of asian friends all drank on the weekends like crazy. In fact when I first met him he had a cut on his face from falling down drunk.
Gotta agree with Crazy Boob. Being Asian myself, and having drunk on sufficient occasions in the past 8-odd years, and having innumerable Asian friends who do drink (some of them rather heavily), I can confidently tell you that your friend is indeed mistaken/masochistic/whatever.
On the other hand, with Asia being the gigantic mass it is, with so many different races, religions, cultures, etc., it is simply impossible to generalise anything with regard to its inhabitants.
For example, if I’m not mistaken, Islam forbids the drinking of alcohol. If then a Muslim, who has never before in his life touched the stuff, and neither has anyone in his family for several generations, were to have a drink, its possible that his body would produce a reaction to it, atleast on the first few occasions. But at the same time, a person of Chritian faith living in the same region wouldn’t necessarily have any allergic reaction to it at all.
I could give you a non-alcoholic example too. I know for a fact that Indians are generally more susceptible to diabetes than other races (probably because of the lifestyle over several generations). This is provable because India does have the highest number of diabetes patients in the world. However, our neighbours across the eastern border, in Burma for example, don’t have any abnormal diabetes problems whatsoever.
I guess its a genetic thing. Maybe the Korean race in particular doesn’t produce the enzyme… but its not an ‘Asian’ thing.
Some East Asian groups have a higher than average percentage of people with a defective gene that doesn’t produce alcohol dehydrogenase as it should, which is an enzyme that helps break down alcohol. If you have the defective gene, alcohol becomes much more potent, and one drink by someone who has the bad gene has the same effect as a few drinks by someone who doesn’t.
The condition is sometimes known as “Asian Flush” or “Oriental Flush”, and is most common in some Chinese and Japanese populations.
I drink like a fish and I read something about that enzyme too. But I don’t think it has anything to do with not being able to drink…more like why we get flushed red. A few of my friends and I get red faces and red patches on our arms when drunk.
From http://www.psc.edu/science/Hempel/all_in_the_family.html
Some others
http://www.kmmutants.org/04A.php
http://www.cityallergy.com/food_allergies.htm
Lots of anecdotal stuff here:
http://members.tripod.com/runker_room/tiestalk/alcohol.htm
My ex-boyfriend used to have a hard time breathing everytime he drank but I guess it wasn’t bad enough for him to stop drinking.
Actually, Captain, the scientific name for this phenomenon is “Sake Suntan.” 
>> Tonight I was out drinking with my friend who’s half Korean. She said that she has a slight allergy to alcohol, but most Asians do
Were you pushing her to drink? Because it is very possible she was politely refusing your pressure.
Heh. We call it “moonburn.”
My friend calls the splotches on her arm “the Continents” because one of them looks like Australia.
Hey, let’s be more precise here. We’re talking about East Asians — Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, etc. — not all Asians. (makes me wish we had a convenient word for this group … oh yeah, “Oriental.” D’oh!)
Actually, she was explaining this to me while simultaneously complaining to the bartender that he put too much coke and not enough rum in her drink. So I’m gonna have to go with no on this one.
Captain Amazing, she mentioned the word “dehydrogenase.” Or at least I think she did. I didn’t press for a definition though.
acsenray, I was informed by a Chinese friend of mine that the word “Oriental,” when in reference to a human and not an object, is actually degrogatory and insulting. So many things to learn about this culture…
Yes, that “d’oh” was a comment on the needless derogatisation of an otherwise useful word. It’s only derogatory and insulting because it is perceived as such, not because of any inherent characteristic of the word (“Asian,” after all is etymologically identical to “Oriental”; both are references to the “east” and “sunrise.”). And its status as a derogatory word is relatively recent — in the 1970s, it was a perfectly innocent descriptive.
Sitting in a bar in Japan as I type. The dehydrogenase deficiency is evident in several but not all. My best friends girlfriend has had 2 beers and almost passed out. Another friend has had 10 and wouldn’t appear drunk to the casual observer. YMMV
I think the passing out has nothing to do with the enzyme.
Seriously.
I’m small and back in my younger days I could knock back 10-12 on any given night, turn absolutely red, but not pass out.
Nowadays I’ve cut down to about 6-7 when I do occasionally get to drink. I’m fairly sure they are talking about the redness and some peoples’ inability to drink.
ascenray–I hear ya. Being called Oriental doesn’t bother me one bit, and I have never heard about people being offended by it (especially here in Hawaii! Big Asian/Oriental population!), until I came to this board. Hmm.
Sorry, that should read “some peoples’ inability to breathe.”
Not quite. Asia comes from the Hittite name for Phrygia, a part of present day Anatolia an area around the ancient city of Troy which the Hittites called Assuwa. The name’s earliest know usage dates to 2000 BCE. The Greeks made it into Asia and by Roman time it had acquired the modern meaning denoting the great continent between the Mediterranean and the Pacific. Assuwa was situated in the west from a Hittite perspective and it is therefore unlikely that the word has anything to do with the rising sun or the east. I’m afraid my Hittite is a little rusty (read non-existent) so I can’t tell you off the cuff what the meaning of the name is.
The word orient on the other hand has an indirect connection to the rising sun as it comes from the latin oriri to arise, appear, be born. The Proto Indo European root is er- which means to move or set in motion. Some other words with this root are earnest, origin, original, abort and hormone.
East is directly related to the rising sun as it comes from the Germanic austra which means dawn and comes of the PIE root word aus- which means to shine. In another thread I recently explained the word east and it’s strange relation or rather lack of to the Latin word for south, auster of the same PIE origin .
Sorry about the nitpicking hijack.
Carry on.
Sparc
To my understanding, the lack of the enzyme (I think aldehyde deH [dehydrogenase]) leads to build up of acetaldehyde, and causes the flushing or turning red. Just from anectodal evidence, usually it’s just in the face, but I’ve seen people have their arms turn red as well. This is more common in Asians (through googling, 50% of asians and native americans). I think my dad has it, but the kids don’t.
As for whether this applies to how much you can drink or tolerance, I’m not so sure (and I don’t think many studies have been done on this – the long term effects, anyway) since I’ve had friends who could drink like a fish, turn red after a couple early ones, and just keep going.
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I’m fairly sure they are talking about the redness and some peoples’ inability to drink.
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…but if you drink like a fish, ain’t that the same thing? 
Popping in with anecdotal “evidence” here.
Korean wifey talks often of this enzyme and is giggely after one light-beer (4%ish) and bright pink and doddery after two.
Japanese friend also gets off her face after about one pint. Japanese girls are giggely enough sober 
Tall young man of HK-Chinese parents, brought up in the UK. Found him wandering through the halls swerving back and forth in an alarming shade of bright red. Legs, arms, face, chest a deep bright red. I took the 3/4 full Bud (half liter can) can from his hand to check it really was beer in there and not moonshine. I asked how many he had had. This was his first for the night. In other words he was close to falling down drunk after about 33cl Budweiser.
Now, I know anecdotal only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades, but thats 3 for 3 for all the asians I have seen drinking alcohol. Two out of three referred to the mysterious enzyme, the other was basically unable to speak.
FTR, to me “oriental” is descriptive not of people from east asia but of objects, concepts etc from the middle east. An oriental mat for example, or an oriental coffee-pot or food store. Asian for me is primarily East and South East Asian, I only think of India etc as Asian when in the company of people from the UK.
Anecdotal evidence to add to the pile: I would say that about 4 out of 5 of my Chinese-American friends (and that’s a ratio, not an exact number… I’m talking a population sample in the dozens) exhibit characteristics of alcohol dehydrogenase deficiency, including extremely low tolerance (e.g. getting ‘drunk’ after only 1-2 drinks, passing out or getting sick really fast, after few drinks), and red faces, necks and arms when drinking. In my circle it’s called the ‘Asian Flush’ (or ‘Blush’). I’ve also heard it called, once or twice only, a ‘China Tan’ (intended, I imagine, to be a play on the word ‘Chinaman’).
The deficiency is well known. Ethanol in the body is converted to acetaldehyde by alcohol dehydrogenase, then another hydrogen is removed by aldehyde dehydrogenase. It is this second enzyme that tends to be less active in some populations, including many Asians.