It is the second you have been ready for all week: 5 p.m. on Friday. You head straight from work to satisfy your mates on the native bar, ideas of joyful hour dancing in your head. Earlier than lengthy, you have bellied as much as the bar and downed your first half-price beverage. However earlier than you start to really feel that nice glow, a distinctly completely different response happens. Coronary heart-racing, head-pounding waves of dizziness and nausea overtake you, simply because the pores and skin north of your shirt collar turns beet pink. This is not in any respect what you had in thoughts, so why is it taking place?
The excellent news: Somebody did not slip you a roofie. The dangerous information? You are experiencing alcohol flush response or alcohol intolerance, a situation by which your physique struggles to interrupt down ingested alcohol.
Usually, an enzyme often known as aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2) breaks down acetaldehyde, a byproduct that happens when your physique metabolizes alcohol. In case your ALDH2 enzyme is inactive, acetaldehyde — a toxin — accumulates and wreaks havoc in your physique. One of the vital frequent signs is flushed pores and skin, notably on the face and neck, however acetaldehyde also can trigger complications, dizziness, nausea, speedy heartbeat and swelling.
For some folks, only one alcoholic drink can result in a flushed face. For others, it might take a number of alcoholic drinks earlier than the telltale redness happens. Whereas sensitivity varies by particular person, there are teams of people that could also be extra liable to experiencing alcohol flushing than others. Genetics are responsible. The inactive — or mutated — ALDH2 enzyme may be handed from one or each dad and mom to their offspring, and is especially frequent in folks of Jewish and Asian descent, particularly these of Japanese, Chinese language or Korean descent [source: Columbia Health]. Different threat components for alcohol intolerance embody allergy symptoms to sure meals like grains, taking sure antibiotics or antifungal drugs, or having Hodgkin’s lymphoma [source: Mayo Clinic].
A 2010 research printed in BMC Evolutionary Biology traced the mutated gene to southern China some 10,000 years in the past, and researchers speculated that it developed as a method to forestall Yangtze River farmers from overindulging within the alcohol they comprised of fermented rice. In the present day, the mutated gene is credited with decrease charges of alcoholism among the many Asian inhabitants. The gene has additionally served as inspiration for the drug disulfiram (Antabuse), which is used to deal with alcoholism by mimicking the disagreeable negative effects of alcohol flush response [source: Hamilton].
This alcohol flush generally is a pink flag for most cancers threat, too. Folks with the ALHD2 gene mutation have a markedly increased threat of creating esophageal most cancers once they drink alcohol. For instance, an individual with an ALHD2 deficiency who drinks two beers a day is as much as 10 instances extra prone to get esophageal most cancers than somebody with out the faulty gene who drinks the identical quantity [sources: Brooks, et al., Mapes].
