i found myself explaining the whole asians and alcohol thing a fair few times over the christmas period so i thought it'd make for a good general knowledge thread here.

most people know that there are asians that go red at the whiff of a light beer but there are some who only vaguely know why so i thought i'd raise some awareness ... i ended up using too many brackets and explanations so i put some unnecessary science content into spoiler tags...

basically, if you're asian and, like me, and you never really figured out what was so great about alcohol, then you're likely to be a part of the 50% of asians who find alcohol repulsive.

yes, half (reflecting dominant inheritance) of the asian population lack an enzyme, ALDH2 (due to a missense mutation), that detoxifies acetaldehyde, a toxic intermediate product in alcohol metabolism. when we drink, the toxic acetaldehyde rapidly accumulates in our blood and is not broken down effectively, causing us to get the trademark "asian blush", along with an accelerated heart rate and hangover symptoms such as throbbing headache, short breath, and nausea/vomiting. in fact, a popular treatment for alcohol addiction (antabuse) actually simulates what it's like to be one of us mutant asians by blocking ALDH2 activity and therefore causing the same acetaldehyde buildup and unpleasant symptoms that people like us experience when we consume alcohol - these symptoms are supposed to be off-putting enough to outweigh any enjoyable qualities of alcohol (negative reinforcement) and eventually curb their addicitions. we actually have it worse than someone on antabuse - for us, the concentration of acetaldehyde is about 12x normal whereas the concentrations for regular people on antabuse are only 5 - 10x normal.

given our social environment, virtually being on antabuse permanently is often viewed as a handicap, but at the end of the day it's a protective mutation. bear in mind that acetaldehyde is a known carcinogen, so the risk of getting cancer is much greater for people lacking ALDH2 if they drink as much as others.

having a glass of red/white/bubbly/beer with a meal doesn't seem to have much of an effect on me, but anything more will get me red. my equivalent of alcoholism is probably when i got addicted to those mini chocolate liquor bottles

Taking Pepcid AC helps to reduce the asian glow.

I guess lucky or not for me, I don't have Asian blush, and in turn actually have pretty great alcohol tolerance. Most helpful these days since I'm in Sales/Marketing, so drinking/dinners are a large part of my job.

I have it... and I wish I didn't. No one in my family has it.

Jung, maybe you were adopted...

I know I have it. My dad can't drink but my mom can drink.
I can't even consume the weakest alcoholic drink...

Russians and the Irish also get red flushed faces too.

omg, this is the second time someone suggested this to me today...

I don't turn red and I don't get any of those symptoms, but then again I've never really drank much at one time. My protection against overdrinking is the unacquireable "acquired taste" everyone talks about. I still don't understand how you can acquire the taste to like urine.

My dad gets it but he drinks a lot. My mom never drinks so I don't know if she does.

yep i get it and i hate it! just half a glass of wine makes me look like i drank ten..

my dad also gets asian flush.. but my mom doesn't..

as a matter of speaking, I AM having the red blush now (got sake and champagne just then)
but some of my caucasian friends turned also red because of alcohol.....

my cousin (who apparently drinks beter than me) don't turn red at all after a couple glass of champagen and sake

I never knew that it's genetic

ME!

After a couple of sojus or shots, my face started turn red and I'll have rashes over my abdomen.....whether I'm sober or not

I do get really red, but I don't know if it's from the alcohol or from the many slaps I get when Hooter girls turn me down.

Both my grandpa and I get it and we're German.

haha don't worry Jung my family is like that as well. Everyone can drink without getting turn red while I'm a beet when I even try a sip.

I always turn red on the second beer.
I can handle one without problems but the second one always gets me.


How do you know how urine tastes like?

I don't really want to talk about it. All I'll say is that I got really drunk one night and it involved a midget and a goat.

I don't have that, my father and my brother does though.

You guys are lucky!
I don't turn any color when I drink. People say that I seem to get a little more pale.
and that... has gotten me into so much trouble.

People think I'm some kind of tank and think I'm perfectly fine, when in fact I'm already blasted...
They will keep asking me to drink and drink until some unfortunate nights when I don't remember.
Then I wake up to horror stories about how I turned into the incredible drinking hulk, drinking this and that.

I'm just glad that I don't have any really bad drinking habits. I just sit and drink and most of the time throw up in the proper place and pass out. Plus, I don't get hangovers either.

I'm not the only one am I? Sometimes I hate it though!

-John

I used to have rash too,
but then I trained my self with a lot of alcohol , and now I don't get that anymore
now I'm training to loose the red blush away and to make my alcohol tolerance higher

yup sad to say i turn red with just the first drink~~
but that doesnt stop me from drinking A LOT~ haha
one time i drank so much mah face was full on BRIGHT RED
everyone was askin if i was ok~ lol but i wasnt even drunk haha [color="#FF0000"][/color]

i don't get the asian glow...thank goodness. i can handle a good amount of alcohol. i've never drank to the point where i didn't remember anything.

haha i love the spoiler tags... like you don't want to ruin the suspense for people who really need to know why they turn red when they drink. i don't get the asian flush, but only noobs have ever mistaken me for someone with good tolerance. not that i go crazy or anything, because really i don't, but i guess somehow it's still apparent that i'm not sober.


just curious, maybe someone can answer this for me... if your parents don't have it... then doesn't it work out that they don't have the mutation and you shouldn't either?

^
Haha, I love it.
The inference that Jung is a mutant, that is.

it could be that its a recessive gene in both the parents and both parents gave him that gene instead of the one they have that's dominant over that one. it has to do with genetics and biology and i hate science. ew.

i guess i'll give the examples they use to give in hs...

Let's say a capital A stands for the gene that the person doesn't turn red after drinking and a is the gene that makes people turn red after drinking. Everyone has a pair of them so they're either AA, aa, or Aa. One of the two would be dominant over the other, in this case I'm assuming not turning red is dominant over turning red. Dominant meaning that if someone had both genes, Aa, the dominant one would occur instead of the recessive one. In this case if both parents don't turn red that means they have at least one A in their pair. So the mom is Aa or AA and the dad is Aa or AA too. When they have kids they each pass on one of the genes to the child and it gets its own pair.

For example if the mom was AA and the father was Aa, the only kids they could have are AA or Aa since the mom can't pass on a recessive a to make an aa pair.

Since Aa or AA would mean that the kid won't turn red, the dominant gene occurs in both and would occur instead of the recessive gene, in his case he can only be an aa. So that would mean both parents passed on the recessive gene and he's aa and therefore his parents are both Aa. It is possible for parents who don't turn red from drinking to have kids that do. I don't know if that makes sense. I'm not good at explaining or understanding science, therefore i'm not a science major. Sorry if I was wrong somewhere, I learned this in like 9th grade.

[edit]
And I'm guessing it's not really a "mutation" it's just a trait like any other. Like if your nose is big or small or if you're tall or short. Mutations are more of when you get genes that are like AAa or aaaa or A instead of just a normal pair. I forgot what they're called. Ask a bio major haha.
[/edit]

Heh, I remember the times when we used to go to Goodnight Gracie's. I don't think keeping up with Brian and Lisa was ever a good idea when it came to martinis

ehh i have that too! i drink so little and my face gets beet red!

haha i was a bio major... just one of the bad ones. i guess i'm just asking because i thought boka mentioned that it was a dominant mutation and i just want to know if i'm wrong in thinking what i was. it is a mutation though.


as far as i can remember, you guys were all high tolerance champs! goodnight gracie's was one of my favorite places in ann arbor, but now that i'm in cali i want to bring back the awesome asian-influenced cocktails i keep finding here, like peach soju and lychee martinis. if bubble island could be a hit on campus, those drinks could be too, i'm sure.

http://www.cheerzhangover.com/media/newsre...gover-flush.htm
oh yeah it is a mutation, alleles, that's what i was referring to before. so whoever has it has a mutated allele. you're mutants, you're all freaks. =[

i'm as red as a tomato!
nothing wrong with being red.

i don't...but i'm not asian and i guess i come from a long proud line of alcoholics(sp).

I get it... red as a tomato, lol. But I can drink a fair amount anyway... just the redness!

i don't get the AZN blush!
well like mah cheecks go PINK like im blushing
but not the whole face.. ^^;;
so gyea...pretty much i look like im blushing HARDCORE like <--kinda

I don't turn that red, but I guess I get the Asian blush. In a way kind of weird because i'm one of the folks that like to peer pressure people...

My dad doesn't drink, but when I was younger I saw my dad drink a beer and he was glowing red. It was pretty funny, I thought it was hilarious. Then he let me sip a little and I vowed never to drink alcohol ever again.

Of course I didn't keep that vow haha. I take after my mom a lot, and I also got the anti red blush genes from her! I'm so glad because I don't like that kind of attention.

I don't get the Asian blush, I guess that's because both my parents drink and I've been brushing up on my alcohol tolerance in the last few years - hard not to when you have colleagues who are very fond of hitting the pubs!

I've got the aBlush also. My dad's just the same. He drinks one beer and he's bright red. The redness sort of keeps me from drinking that much because the red and hot face kind of makes me self-conscious. My mom's a skilled drinker though and doesn't really get that red.

i remember taking shots of asaki, white something, and..this other bottle xD. Gahhh i'm drinking things i don't even know xD.

and dang did i turn red o.o;;; my eyes were bright red as well...which were quite scary. I had to cover my face with a sweater because it was a family christmas >___________<

hmm I don't get that actually ~~ drinking doesn't affect me too much but when I eat I get red hahaha...but I"m usually red w/o anything anyways..I have a permanent blush.

Red like a baboon's ass. Being pale does not help either.

I'm not Asian, but I hear that I turn red from barely drinking. So maybe I have "Not-so-Asian blush".

I went drinking last night and my friend who gets "racoon face" when she drinks took Zantac and she didn't turn red at all. Just a slight pink. It was amazing!

So I guess if you drink enough, that means you're in estrus too?

I lack that enzyme, I usually say I'm allergic though
I can handle about a cap's worth of smirnoff mixed with cranberry juice but anymore than that I get very itchy.
3 shots will leave me in hell for days and some skin peeling too

I hate it....because I look horrible all red ahah but than again it depends on how much I had!

what?! this is genetic? i'm not abnormal?!?!?!

Asian "blush" would be putting it mildly...i turn bright red on my second drink and get pink blotches all over my face.

Same, I don't drink often at all, maybe once or twice a year at most. A couple sips of one beer makes me bright red. So sad
I guess it's not a bad thing though, makes me not want to drink at all.


Edit: Sorry, posted there now.

New user should introduce themselves in the pinned thread.

i'm half-ghost. the more i drink, the paler i get. lolz

i wonder if its genetic... my mom drinks like a horse. we have these huge chinese dinners and she downs like half a bottle of brandy no probs. i don't do hard liquor but i can do a bottle of white any day. i've never been drunk. ever. i just sleepier and sleepier until i fall asleep in the middle of the crowd. and never had a hangover.. thank god! i've heard descriptions. not pretty.

Here's a diagram

lets say a is the gene you need to get it.

Bother parents don't have it.

Dad is Aa
Mom is Aa

A is a dominant gene so that's why dad and mom dosen't have it.

Now the kids Dad and Mom can produce are AA, Aa, and aa

if you were the unlucky aa you would get it. Does that make sense? It's genetics

this turning red thing is one of the reasons i couldnt drink outside my house.. im really embarassed about it...

im part chinese, and almost all my chinese relatives blush when they consume alcohol.. my filipino relatives dont have it..