Asians have a higher chance of having instant hangover effects when drinking

College Life
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<p>I haven't confirmed whether I have the mutated gene(s) that cause(s) this, because I've never got tested nor have I "drunk" drunk. </p>

<p>I have however used cooking wine frequently, for meats and even for instant noodles, mainly to release the content of herbs. </p>

<p>(For example, to release fresh herbs like mint or basil, you freeze the leaves overnight, crush them with pestle and mortar and thereby rupture the cell walls and central vacuoles. This exposes the cell membranes, so you take the mixture and soak it in hot olive oil, and the plant cells' lipid bilayers dissolve into the oil better than they do in water [for obvious chemistry reasons]. Cooking spirits bring the rest of the cell contents into solution. You can get a very potent herbal mixture this way.)</p>

<p>But I digress. Anyway, apparently two thirds of Asians have mutated alles for their alcohol dehydrogenase gene that instantly converts alcohol to acetaldehyde, the chemical that causes hangovers. Half of this population have mutated alleles that inhibit the step in the pathway from acetaldehyde. The result is the instant accumulation of the chemical and thus they start to get instant hangover effects when they are drinking. </p>

<p>I began to suspect something because 1) I tried drinking beer when I was much younger and found it much to my distaste 2) even smelling cooking wine makes me sick 3) a few days ago I put too much cooking wine [and this is mild stuff, mind you] into the herbal mixture because I forgot I could simply dilute it to allow the solution level to cover the herbs 4) I thought "aww, what the heck" and put it into my noodles anyway. 5) For the first time, I felt slightly ill from eating instant noodles. Now granted, it was three packets of instant noodles, but up until that point, I never had migraine-effects from eating.</p>

<p>And I haven't even tried going to a tailgating party yet. Like, not a single red cup and I get headaches if I even consume tiny amounts (50 to 150 mL) of alcohol. I don't know if this is equivalent to a hangover though.</p>

<p>So, for those Asians out there: </p>

<p>1) Do a large amount of you find drinking unenjoyable, or enjoy it less than your non-Asian friends
2) Have you ever suspected something was amiss with your alcohol tolerance
3) Have you ever been tested for these mutations?</p>

<p>kthxbai!</p>

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<p>I find this quite interesting!
Although my mom, brother, dad (all asian) have tolerance to alcohol and like it, I have always really disliked it (stemming from a sip of beer when I was really young and hating it). However, I was slipped a little more once (my brother didn’t know how strong it was) and although it was literally a couple sips, I would say I did have a pretty big reaction= almost no tolerance. No testing though, since I thought it was just me.</p>

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<p>im asian and i have never had a hangover at all after drinking. i drink quite often too</p>

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<p>1) Do a large amount of you find drinking unenjoyable, or enjoy it less than your non-Asian friends
Yes. If I drink half a beer, I’m ok and I’ll get slightly buzzed. Any more than that, and its headache land for me. But I have never gotten a hangover the next day. Maybe this is why.</p>

<p>2) Have you ever suspected something was amiss with your alcohol tolerance</p>

<p>Yessssss. Oh my god, do you know how horrible it is to be drunk after playing ONE ROUND of beer pong?! D=!!</p>

<p>And you WON the round, nonetheless. And your partner drank most of the beer. EUGH</p>

<p>3) Have you ever been tested for these mutations?</p>

<p>Nope.</p>

<p>Verrrry interesting.</p>

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<p>Ah, that must simply mean you have the wildtype allele!</p>

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<p>I suspect that’s what a lot of (Asian) people think, but they don’t suspect something else is at play. </p>

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<p>Yes! I suspect that since the effects come instantly, you stop drinking before you drink too much alcohol (though the headaches last for a while). But for those who don’t have the mutated genes, the acetaldehyde doesn’t accumulate until they’ve drunk a fair bit and then a HUGE amount of acetaldehyde hits the bloodstream while they sleep.</p>

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<p>Interesting…
but not me :smiley: I have never had a hangover either, but fyi I don’t drink often, just in vast amounts when I get the chance.</p>

<p>Actually, thinking about it, I never FELT I was ever drunk. Most of time, I remember everything… maybe I just have a high tolerance for alcohol.</p>

<p>Oh, I see you’re from Asia. You should try rice wine or scotch whiskey mixed with ice green tea (if you’re ever in China), it’s pretty much the ****.</p>

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<p>No offence, but isn’t that a worse thing to do? :p</p>

<p>(For those without the mutation anyway, euphoria as a function of BAC should be a positively-skewed curve. Hit the right level, and everything is light. Overshoot, and you get miserable. To maximise euphoria, it wouldn’t pay to binge, right?)</p>

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<p>Haha, well… like most Asians, I have strict ass parents. Besides, I think I’m on the opposite side of the spectrum.</p>

<p>Rutiene - did you go to school in Cary?</p>

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<p>Spectrum of morality? Euphoria as a function of BAC? </p>

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<p>Yarr, that backfires on them so much. 0.03 regularly is better than having a life punctuated by 0.30 explosions. Kind of like eating.</p>

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<p>Haha, figures. (@ the thread title)</p>

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<p>I went to school in Canada, my family moved down here in my Senior year and I finished school up there.</p>

<p>–
I also remember every little thing even when I’m drunk. I remember once I drank so much that I threw up, but I remember everything about that night.</p>

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<p>i find for the most part that asians are lightweights compared to white and black people when it comes to drinking. usually when white/black people i hang around with go to the liquor store they get 40s. but my asian friends when we go to the liquor store they get 32ozers.</p>

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<p>i wish they sold 40’s in florida</p>

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<p>galoisien,</p>

<p>It would be nice if you provided some sources!</p>

<p>Regarding your questions,</p>

<p>1) Do a large amount of you find drinking unenjoyable, or enjoy it less than your non-Asian friends</p>

<p>I don’t find drinking lousy beer or jungle juice enjoyable at all. The kind of beer at parties smells like urine and probably has the same taste. Properly made jungle juice is very dangerous. You can’t taste the alcohol, so you don’t realize how quickly you’re getting drunk. Some of my friends are very intelligent but nevertheless failed to realize this. (Possibly on purpose.)</p>

<p>2) Have you ever suspected something was amiss with your alcohol tolerance</p>

<p>Not really. When I had my first standard drink, a glass of wine, I didn’t feel any different than normal. When Spring semester finals were over, I had a double-shot of vodka to celebrate. I could feel my face getting red, but other than that, I didn’t feel happier or sadder.</p>

<p>3) Have you ever been tested for these mutations?</p>

<p>No.</p>

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<p>Have you BEEN to asia? That’s like the only thing they do around here, drink drink drink o_O. Or at least in korea, every outing involves an alcohol.. we used to go out every week and there would be like 40 people drinking and doing one shots of soju all over the place… People would walk to the bar because they didn’t want to spend 3-4 dollars on taxi. They would rather buy a bottle of soju with that instead.</p>

<p>Asians might have a higher chance of getting a hang over but it certainly doesn’t stop them.</p>

<p>I don’t drink much due to the fact I have an asian glow and I turn into a tomato though. I never got a hang over.</p>

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<p>fabrizio: just google ‘alcohol dehydrogenase mutation asian’. And throw in other keywords from my post for good measure. It was discovered fairly recently but is well-documented now.</p>

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<p>I was born in Singapore and yeah the alcohol industry is healthy there. But note it’s just that Asians have a good chance of having the mutations - many won’t have them. Additionally it has been shown through mtDNA and linguistic evidence that Japanese and Koreans are more closely related to Caucasians than Chinese or Malays, for example.</p>

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<p>Alcohol Dehydrogenase Syndrome (which causes what’s being described) is often commonly referred to as “Asian flush”, which just goes to show you how common it is in the Asian community.</p>

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<p>…
I was under the impression that nearly all of the alcohol in cooking wines evaporated while cooking.</p>

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<p>Note that you need both an extremely overactive alcohol dehydrogenase dominant allele and two recessive impaired alleles for acetaldehyde dehydrogenase in order to get instant hangover syndrome. It so happens that a large minority of Asians (including myself, I suspect) have all three mutated alleles.</p>