Quite often, one can observe a situation where the same amount of alcohol consumed causes completely different responses. Some people practically do not get drunk from alcohol, others get drunk with a single glass. This is due to many factors, such as: individual characteristics, gender, age, race, quantity and frequency of drinking strong drinks. There are cases when ethanol ceases to cause a feeling of euphoria, and even increasing its amount, the situation does not change. It is required to understand in more detail why some people do not get drunk from alcohol.
Read in the article
The effect of alcohol on the body
The main target of the toxic substance is the brain. At the same time, alcohol affects many organs and systems, including blood cells. Red blood cells responsible for the transport of hemoglobin begin to lyse - dissolve. Additionally, the lumen of the vessels, blood viscosity changes, which leads to the formation of blood clots, consisting of all formed elements. When a person drinks, the delivery of oxygen is difficult, and some areas of the cortex are exposed to ischemia as a result of blockage of small vessels. The brain suffers the most from the state of oxygen starvation. This causes a deviation from normal work, perceived as intoxication: communication barriers disappear, there is a feeling of euphoria, muscle relaxation, coordination and perception change.
Intoxication and euphoria are associated with the activation of the inhibitory effect of the central nervous system: the nerve impulse slows down - the person relaxes and gets drunk. Alcohol breakdown products interact with brain mediators, causing an effect similar to drug use. An additional factor is the death of brain neurons, as a result of which the thinking organ does not have time to redistribute incoming impulses: there is a loss of coordination of movement and speech, and consciousness is turned off.
Some scientists, when asked why a person no longer gets drunk, answer that the bulk of the brain cells have already died. With each subsequent use of ethanol, less and less intact areas remain, the remaining neurons are not able to respond adequately to the action of the poison.
Metabolic processes, the role of enzymes
To understand why some people get drunk faster than others, you need to understand the effect of ethyl alcohol on the body, as well as the disposal process.
The biochemical breakdown of alcohol occurs with the participation of two main enzymes: alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) and acetaldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH). The first splits the ethanol molecule to another toxic substance - acetaldehyde, the second utilizes the poison, redirects it to the chain of normal biochemical processes. Regarding the rate of saturation of the body with alcohol, these two enzymes play a decisive role. There are three options for their relationship:
- both enzymes are slow. This structure is expressed in Asians, as a result of which splitting occurs very slowly. Even a small amount of drinking causes a feeling of addiction;
- both enzymes are fast. The presence of this combination allows you not to get drunk for a very long time;
- the first enzyme is fast and the second is slow. In this case, people can not get drunk for a long time. But there is a downside - oversaturation with the amount of toxic acetaldehyde causes a terrible morning hangover. Unfortunately, this type is often found among Russians.
Factors that change the speed of intoxication
There are well-known categories of people who are more affected by alcohol:
- young age, when enzymatic systems are not developed properly;
- older people: the rate of metabolic processes slows down, alcohol is excreted and processed longer;
- the female sex, which is considered more fragile, has less weight. And most importantly - women do not have ADH of the stomach, all the poison is processed only in the liver. In men, the splitting process begins earlier - in the digestive tract, which means they do not get drunk longer;
- low body weight. The rate of saturation with poison directly depends on kilograms: the lower the weight, the faster each cell will receive its “dose”;
- representatives of the Asian race - have a specific structure of enzymes, due to which the effect of drinking alcohol comes almost immediately.
An important role is played by the speed of consumption, the strength of drinks, the quality of alcohol, the presence or absence of food, and the emotional state.
For a person who is in a state of intense stress, alcohol has a lesser effect. In a relaxed environment, the process of intoxication occurs faster.
Negative sides
The transformation of strong drinks is a rather difficult process that affects the entire body as a whole. Breaking down alcohol, the liver consumes energy, uses coenzymes, the course and direction of the biochemical process changes:
- the formation of fatty acids increases - fatty degeneration of the organ starts. Up to a certain point, the process is reversible; upon transition to cirrhosis, the organ loses its functional activity. The liver stops processing poisons: at first people drink without feeling relaxed, then the body becomes oversaturated - severe intoxication may develop;
- lactate oxidation and, consequently, the formation of glucose, the main substrate for brain nutrition, are reduced. There is a powerful starvation of the body. Considering the fact that many alcoholics are diabetics, and alcohol consumption reduces the concentration of glucose in the blood and depletes liver glycogen stores, hypoglycemic coma may develop;
- ketone bodies are formed in excessive amounts, in conditions of starvation of the brain they become the main source of energy. The buffer composition of the blood changes, acetone accumulates, vomiting occurs, loss of consciousness up to coma.
What is MEOS
The body has a reserve station for the utilization of ethanol: the microsomal ethanol-oxidizing system (MEOS). Normally, it almost does not participate in the exchange of ethanol, but is included in the work with chronic abuse - alcoholism. The negative side is an increase in the intermediate toxic product - acetaldehyde. Another consequence of system activation is the development of tolerance to an excessive dose of alcohol. That's why you don't get drunk on alcohol when you're addicted. Tolerance is not limited to strong drinks: when MEOS is not busy processing alcohol, many drugs in the usual dosage do not have the desired effect.
When interacting medicines and ethanol, the oxidizing system breaks down alcoholic beverages in priority, so a small concentration of the drug can lead to death.
It is important to monitor the change in a person's reaction to alcohol. Excessively rapid satiety in a subject may be indicative of developing cirrhosis. And the sharp appearance of resistance to alcohol is a reason to turn to a narcologist for advice.
People get drunk in different ways. Surely many have asked a similar question - why does one person get drunk immediately, while another can drink almost a liter of alcohol and nothing will happen to him?
And the point here is not only the nature of the snack or the fact that someone drank on an empty stomach, but someone ate hearty before that. Although these factors also play an important role.
The root of the problem is much deeper, and you need to look for it in the characteristics of your body. Let's try now to find out the whole essence of the question - why do people get drunk in different ways?
Many people, knowing that a feast awaits them, resort to various methods to hold out during the feast as long as possible.
There are all sorts of ways: pills, infusions, special foods or products that help you stay in line for a long time. But, as they say, you can't fool yourself.
No matter how many ways and methods were invented, but there is a category of people who will lie down after one or two glasses. What factors play a primary role? No matter how strange it may sound, age, gender, body composition and even the nationality of a person are important here.
To find out all the reasons gotta deal with it, How does the process of intoxication take place?. The fact is that while drinking alcohol, a substance such as ethanol enters the human body. It is he who leads to dope in the head.
Once in the stomach and intestines, it seeps through the mucous membrane into the blood. In the blood, ethanol does its insidious work. It directly affects red blood cells, which begin to stick together. As a result, clots form.
They slow down blood circulation, clog the brain, dull the work of many organs, make a kind of oxygen starvation to the brain. Hence the strange behavior of a drunk person - uncontrolled movements, inappropriate behavior and much more.
Some lovers of frequent feasts specially train their body, gradually improving the level of their “skill” in this difficult field.
But no matter how hard they try, each organism has a boundary limit when it can no longer withstand toxins. For example, people of large dimensions, who are both tall and large, get drunk more slowly.
The fact is that in such people the volume of blood in the body will be much higher than in small people with a fragile physique. This ultimately affects the rate of distribution of ethanol in the blood.
Hence the conclusion that a huge person can drink more than a small one. Also, big people will have a larger liver, and therefore it will more actively cope with alcohol, removing toxins from the body.
The rate of drinking also affects the level of intoxication..
If you quickly pour several glasses in a row into yourself, then blood clots will very soon cling to the brain and disrupt its normal functioning. Therefore, it is better to drink slowly, then you can drink a little more.
Also snacks play an important role. Food is able to absorb some of the ethanol. Therefore, during the feast it is better to have a good snack. But it's also not worth eating from the belly.
Since in the morning there can be not only a hangover, but also heaviness in the stomach from food stagnation. It is not for nothing that they say that you should not drink on an empty stomach, you need to at least “lay a little”.
This statement is absolutely correct. If there is food in the stomach, then the alcohol will first be absorbed by it. It serves as such an absorbent sponge that filters alcohol and promotes its slow absorption.
Drinking alcohol properly is also important.. Most immediately after the glass sips water from the glass. But this should not be done. After all, a liquid, especially one that has bubbles, contributes to the faster spread of alcohol through the blood. As a result, you will get drunk faster.
That's why champagne often hits the balls. Indeed, in its structure an explosive mixture is obtained - alcohol and bubbles in tandem.
The speed of intoxication is affected by enzymes that are in the body of each person. The whole process depends on their number - the fewer of them, the faster you will be drunk.
According to statistics, such enzymes are more in the representatives of the stronger sex, but this fact has not been scientifically proven. Enzymes are found in the liver. It is they who fight alcohol in our blood. In some people, these enzymes have a more active form. As a result, they quickly cope with alcohol.
But the owners of passive enzymes just the same and quickly get drunk. There is no way to influence this factor. It is easy to reduce the number of such enzymes or dull their activity.
The fact is that the possibilities of this kind of substances are not unlimited. Frequent use of alcohol will lead to their depletion.
Another fact in favor of men in the process of intoxication is that there are fewer fat cells in their body. But women have plenty of them. It is these cells that are generally indifferent to alcohol - they do not absorb it.
As a result, this leads to the fact that the blood is saturated with ethanol faster and denser. That is why women are not so strong in alcoholic competitions.
Young people are more resistant to intoxication. Unlike older people, they can drink more because they have more fluid in their bodies.
In the human body old age the amount of liquid decreases, which, when consuming alcohol, leads to a rapid saturation of the blood with alcohol. In addition, many organs and cells of old people are already worn out, and therefore much more vulnerable.
The process of intoxication also depends on the genetic structure of the organism. For example, Asians get drunk much faster than others. Because there is another harmful component in alcohol, which genes must cope with. 
The liver must expel acetaldehyde from the body. But the presence or vice versa, the absence of certain genes, can slow down this process.
The speed of intoxication is also influenced by the physiological characteristics of the body.
A person who is often ill, physically exhausted, often in a bad mood and depressed will give up after two or three shots.
Also, a lot depends on the company, the current mood, the psychological mood, and even the reason to “sit down”. In addition, the frequency and regularity of alcohol consumption also has its consequences.
For example, people who abuse alcohol get intoxicated faster in the head. After all, their body is oversaturated with ethanol and is no longer able to resist alcohol poisons.
In addition, the enzymes of such people have long gone on a well-deserved vacation, as they are unable to cope with the amount of alcohol they drink.
All the reasons and factors were put on the shelves. Now you know for sure why some mow down after a glass of champagne, while others can drink all night long.
And no auxiliary substances will help to deceive your body - the norm is the norm.
Alcohol is a psychoactive substance that significantly alters the functioning of the central nervous system. It relaxes, improves mood, brings pleasure - for this purpose they drink it.
However, it can be seen that one glass is enough for someone to get very tipsy, and someone drinks in significant quantities and continues to look and act like a sober one. Such a different effect of alcohol on the body is due to various factors, including the individual characteristics of a person.
To understand why some people drink and don't get drunk, you first need to understand what effect ethanol has on the body.
Once in the digestive tract, alcohol begins to be absorbed into the blood. With its current, it spreads to all tissues. Once in the brain, it interacts with cerebral cells, triggering the processes of excitation and inhibition. By inhibiting the functions of some brain centers, it affects the speech, behavior and appearance of a person.
When drinking small doses, alcohol has a disinhibitory effect: speech accelerates and becomes louder, the drinker behaves more freely, his mood improves.
Continued intake of alcohol leads to the fact that red blood cells begin to stick together. This happens because under the influence of ethanol their protective shells lose their properties. In the normal state, erythrocytes repel each other, exist autonomously. When their membranes are destroyed, they lose this ability and unite with each other. Such conglomerates are not able to overcome the smallest blood vessels, as they get stuck in them.
This leads to a deterioration in the blood supply to the brain, and, accordingly, to hypoxia.
The lack of oxygen and necessary substances impairs the functioning of various parts of the brain, metabolic processes are disrupted, and many neurons die as a result.
Your Narcologist Explains: Enzymes Necessary for the Disposal of Alcohol
Since the body reacts to alcohol as a poison, it tries to get rid of it faster. To neutralize ethanol, it needs certain substances. They are called enzymes, and the organs of the gastrointestinal tract and the liver are involved in their production.
The latter is most actively involved in recycling, since one of its main functions is filtering and removing compounds that are unnecessary and harmful to the body.
The enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase is required for the oxidation of ethanol. As soon as alcohol enters, the synthesis of this substance begins, with its help ethanol decomposes into a number of compounds that are neutral for the body and extremely toxic acetaldehyde.
This substance is a much more harmful poison, and it is its effect on tissues that causes negative reactions from various organs.
To neutralize the compound and turn it into acetic acid, another enzyme is produced in the liver - acetaldehyde dehydrogenase. It is synthesized at a certain rate, which depends on the individual characteristics of the organism.
Part of the acetaldehyde the liver does not have time to utilize, as a result, it enters the bloodstream and spreads to all organs. Therefore, when drinking large volumes of alcohol, intoxication occurs.
Metabolic processes occurring with alcohol, the role of enzymes
Each person has a different rate of synthesis of enzymes necessary for the breakdown of ethanol and acetaldehyde.
There are three options:
- both enzymes are produced slowly, this type of enzyme activity is most characteristic of the peoples of Asia, who either do not drink at all or fall into alcohol addiction very quickly;
- both enzymes are produced quickly, it is with this type that people can consume significant amounts of alcohol without showing signs of intoxication;
- alcohol dehydrogenase is synthesized quickly, and acetaldehyde dehydrogenase is synthesized slowly, people with this type of enzyme activity also do not experience signs of intoxication for quite a long time, however, the lack of the second enzyme leads to the fact that alcohol consumed in large doses provokes a severe hangover due to the high concentration of highly toxic acetaldehyde in tissues.
Reasons why people don't get drunk for a long time
There are two main reasons why people may not get drunk from significant amounts of alcohol.
The first can be described as the training of the body. With regular use, a person increases the level of enzyme activity, so he does not get drunk for a long time.
However, this fact, especially if such a feature appeared in a person in the process of regular drinking, indicates the development of alcohol dependence.
The second stage of alcoholism is characterized by the need to consume large doses of alcohol to achieve intoxication. This is due to the destructive effect of ethanol on the brain.
With regular use, there are fewer and fewer neurons, so they die more slowly. If you continue to drink, then the brain decreases in volume due to cell loss, shrinks. His centers cease to work effectively, as a result, the personality degrades, the level of intelligence decreases.
The second reason why a person can keep a "face" for a long time when drinking alcohol lies in a certain set of genes. The fact is that the rate of synthesis of enzymes necessary for the breakdown of ethanol, in different people determined by the composition of the genome.
In the process of scientific research, it was found that representatives of traditional wine-growing regions have a set of genes that contribute to the rapid production of the necessary enzymes. Their ancestors produced and consumed alcohol since ancient times, so in the course of evolution adaptation took place.
Italians, French, Greeks and other nations, where grapes have been cultivated since ancient times, can boast that they do not get drunk for a long time.
Another thing is the representatives of the northern peoples, many of whom did not know alcohol at all before the arrival of Europeans. For example, the Eskimos and some indigenous peoples of America somehow did not think of producing alcohol.
For the former, this happened due to a lack of resources, for the latter, for unknown reasons. Due to the fact that the organisms of their ancestors were not familiar with exogenous ethanol, representatives of these peoples have low enzyme activity. They get drunk very quickly, often become alcoholics.
Factors affecting the rate of onset of intoxication
The speed of the onset of alcohol intoxication is due to the influence of external factors and the individual characteristics of a person. Among them:
- age;
- height and weight;
- volume of circulating blood;
- the quality of alcohol, as well as its strength;
- the speed at which a person drinks;
- the quantity and quality of snacks;
- heredity.
Young people can get drunk quite quickly, as their bodies are not used to alcohol and produce enzymes slowly. Older people also get drunk faster than middle-aged people. This is due to a general slowdown in vital activity, a decrease in the metabolic rate and a decrease in enzyme activity.
Gender, height, weight, blood volume are also directly related to the speed of onset of intoxication. Men, in principle, can drink more and not get drunk, as they weigh more and the volume of blood in their body is higher.
A fragile woman can get drunk from a glass of wine, while a strong man will not feel anything from this amount of alcohol.
The rate of alcohol consumption is directly related to the onset of intoxication, since it depends on the concentration of ethanol in the blood.
If you drink a bottle of vodka at once, you can immediately fall drunk, and sometimes die. If you drink slowly, the liver will have time to produce enzymes, and the intoxicating effect will decrease.
In addition to the speed of drinking, snacks also matter. When eating, a person slows down the absorption of ethanol into the blood, so intoxication comes later.
Among the factors influencing the speed of the onset of intoxication, one can also note the psycho-emotional state of the drinker.
If alcohol is consumed in pleasant company, good mood, then the likelihood of getting drunk is less. If a person uses “out of grief”, feels a desire to get tipsy quickly, then this is exactly what will happen to him.
Alcohol has an effect on all people, it does not happen that a person does not get drunk at all, no matter how much he drinks, just the onset of intoxication is delayed. The rate of this process depends on many factors, both endogenous and exogenous.
However, there are special tricks that help you not get drunk for a long time, for example, at a party.
People who drink regularly and wisely stay sober longer. This is due to the fact that the enzymes necessary for cleavage are formed in them faster.
However, even if a person rarely drinks, the production of liver enzymes can be provoked.
You can also eat a little fat (vegetable oil, lard) an hour before the feast with alcohol. This measure will help slow down the absorption of ethanol into the bloodstream and delay the onset of intoxication.
In the main period of drinking, the snack should be sufficient, but not excessive and not very greasy. Fat will slow absorption, but its effect after some time will pass and drunkenness will come suddenly. Therefore, only those who are able to control their drinking can use this advice.
If a person periodically allows himself to drink at a party, then the rest of the time it is advisable for him to eat right and be physically active.
In people who regularly play sports, metabolic processes are more intense, enzymes are produced faster.
It will help you not to get drunk for a long time and compliance with the rules of drinking alcohol. You can not lower the degree and mix different types drinks. It is permissible to drink different alcohol, but it must be produced from similar raw materials.
For example, starting a feast with a glass of wine, then you can drink a glass of cognac. Both of these drinks are made from grapes, cognac is stronger than wine. Drinking vodka, whiskey, vermouth after wine should not be.
Instruction
In general, alcohol intoxication is a consequence of the effect on the body of ethanol, which is contained in alcoholic beverages. This substance has a rather strong psychologically active effect. When used alcoholic beverages there are various changes in the emotional state of a person, in his behavior, coordination and perception of reality. Thanks to the action of ethanol, alcoholic beverages can temporarily improve mood, relieve emotional stress, and liberate a person. However, for each person, the dose of ethanol is individual, for some it can be very large, which is why it seems that such people do not get drunk at all.
In the human body, ethanol is absorbed through the mucous membrane, mainly through the walls of the stomach and intestines. When the substance enters the bloodstream, it begins to have a certain effect on red blood cells, causing them to stick together. Microscopic clumps of red blood cells clog small blood vessels that feed the brain. Because of this, a deficiency of brain cells occurs, and therefore various deviations in human behavior appear, for the same reason, coordination of movements is also disturbed. Signs of alcohol intoxication may vary from person to person.
In many ways, the degree of intoxication from a certain dose of ethanol depends on weight and. The bigger the person, the less he gets drunk. The fact is that the degree of influence of ethanol on the body directly depends on its concentration in the blood. That is, the more, the lower the concentration of the intoxicating substance in it. For the same reasons, the fair sex usually gets drunk faster, because by nature they are more fragile. It happens that a petite girl can get very drunk even from a modest glass of champagne.
Affects the degree of exposure to ethanol and the rate of consumption of drinks. The fact is that if you drink very quickly, then significant doses of erythrocyte clots reach the vessels of your brain faster, that is, intoxication occurs faster. Affects the body and the amount of food consumed with alcohol. A snack is the substance that can retain ethanol in itself, so people who eat a lot while drinking alcoholic beverages get drunk much more slowly.
One of the main reasons that a person gets drunk much more slowly than others are special enzymes in his body. Everyone has them, but their number is individual. These enzymes, produced by the stomach, are able to break down alcohol, preventing it from entering the bloodstream. It is believed that in women the number of enzymes in the body is much less than in men, but this is more an assumption than a proven fact. And of course, the company of people with whom you spend time also affects the degree of intoxication. In a comfortable, relaxing environment, a person is able to get drunk much faster.
Personally, I have met such people, only a few. It seems that they drink on a par with everyone else, but not in one eye, as they say. Read what science thinks about all this. How is that possible, really?
There are people: they drink from Friday to Monday - and nothing to them! And some only sniff champagne - and are already cheerful, but in the morning their head hurts. What is alcohol tolerance?
Dmitry Nikogosov Geneticist, head of the analytical service of the biomedical holding "Atlas"
"Reaction to alcohol" is divided into two phases: intoxication and hangover.
Intoxication is still a process that has not been fully studied by science. This condition is associated with the toxic effects of alcohol on the nervous system. In the nervous system there are special substances - neurotransmitters that transmit signals from one nerve cell to another. One of these neurotransmitters - GABA - is inhibitory and reduces the excitability of nerve cells. Ethanol (alcohol) enhances the action of GABA, as a result, a drunk person relaxes more than usual, begins to feel euphoric. If you drink even more, there will be drowsiness, lethargy and uncoordinated movements.
But alcohol in its pure form does not last long inside the body. And after the drunkenness comes the hangover.
How alcohol is metabolized
Alcohol is rapidly absorbed from the stomach into the bloodstream. With the blood, it enters the liver, where it is processed by the action of enzymes.
The first enzyme, alcohol dehydrogenase, converts ethyl alcohol to acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is a poison. Hangover syndrome - with headache, nausea and other unpleasant symptoms - is a state of acetaldehyde poisoning.
However, another enzyme, acetaldehyde dehydrogenase, also works in the liver. It is included in the process when acetaldehyde appears and turns it into relatively harmless acetic acid, which is processed into water and carbon dioxide and no longer causes hangover symptoms.
So your "reaction to alcohol" depends on the activity of two enzymes - algogold dehydrogenase and acetaldehyde dehydrogenase.
How Enzymes Work
The structure of all the enzymes in our body is encoded in DNA. Genes are a kind of “blueprint”, according to which various proteins, including enzymes, are created in the body. The structure of alcohol dehydrogenase is encoded by the ADH gene, and acetaldehyde dehydrogenase is encoded by the ALDH gene. And often in these gene "drawings" there are modifications that cause various features of the assimilation of alcohol.
No mutations
If there are no mutations in the ADH and ALDH genes, then the enzymes work like clockwork: when it enters the bloodstream, alcohol quickly turns into acetaldehyde, and acetaldehyde is also quickly converted into harmless acetic acid. In this case, a person feels both intoxication and a hangover for a very short time (of course, if you do not immediately drink a bottle of vodka or brandy without preparation, there may not be enough actively working enzymes here).
These strong people always keep the situation under control and can be spies, shaking information out of tipsy drinking companions.
Mutation in ALDH
Alcohol dehydrogenase works quickly, and acetaldehyde dehydrogenase almost does not function. As a result, acetaldehyde is not neutralized, and a person can hardly tolerate alcohol and experiences a hangover even from small portions. This feature of the body is called alcohol intolerance. By the way, one of the ways to treat alcoholism is precisely the blocking of acetaldehyde dehydrogenase. A person from drunkenness does not happen well - immediately bad. Therefore, he prefers not to drink.
Mutation in ADH
The opposite case: the first enzyme works poorly, and the second works well. As a result, a person does not experience a hangover, but stays in a state of joyful intoxication for a very long time. It would seem that you are lucky! But every coin has a flip side: people with such genetic features are more prone to the development of alcoholism and often begin to abuse alcohol.
Two mutations
The most severe option is when both genes are damaged, and, accordingly, both enzymes do not work well. With such features, even from small doses of alcohol, a long intoxication occurs, after which an equally long hangover occurs. Like Zhenya Lukashin, who, over the course of two episodes of The Irony of Fate, is poorly aware of what is happening and generally does not feel well. Such an option in our latitudes is quite rare.
What does it depend on
Features of the assimilation of alcohol by the body are largely determined by belonging to a particular people and the history of its development. The fact is that many centuries ago, different peoples developed two main methods of water disinfection: by diluting with alcohol and by boiling. The first method was typical for the West, the second - for the East, which also explains the developed culture of tea drinking among the Eastern peoples and the developed winemaking among the Western.
As a result of the regular use of alcohol mixed with water, natural selection has occurred, and now most Europeans are born with a good tolerance for alcohol. In Asia, on the contrary, such processes did not occur, therefore, among the Eastern peoples, there are many people with intolerance to alcohol and many of those who are prone to alcoholism.
AT modern Russia both people with good work of both enzymes and those who have one of the enzymes “jumps” are widely represented, and geographical patterns can also be traced: in the western part of the country, citizens with a good tolerance for alcohol prevail, and as you move east, gene variants are more and more common. ADH or ALDH not desirable for drinkers.
External factors
It is worth noting that genetics is an important, but not the only factor influencing the likelihood of a hangover and alcohol tolerance. For example, in low-quality drinks, fusel oils can be present in excess, which are similar to ethanol in structure, therefore they are also processed by alcohol dehydrogenase, but into very harmful substances that aggravate hangover symptoms many times over, and no ideal genes can do it. There is also a “training” factor: if a person regularly consumes small doses of alcohol, his enzyme system adapts, as a result of which, when drinking a large amount of alcohol, he will also be well absorbed. An alcoholic will always outdrink a "newcomer."
