If Alcohol is Toxic, Why can we Drink it? (E31)

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Gill discusses why humans are even able to drink ethanol in the first place. Ethanol is toxic, and we aren’t able to drink diluted versions of other alcohols without severe consequences, so she's been curious why we even evolved to process ethanol. She explains why scientists think we evolved enzymes to process alcohol, and what happens if you drink the other alcohols, which have very similar structures to ethanol. She ends the episode with a couple of stories about people consuming alcohol thinking it was just ethanol, but it was actually tainted with methanol.

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Key Takeaways

1. A 2014 study published in the PNAS studied alcohol dehydrogenase from 19 different primate species and determined what the alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme would have been like at different points in the past. About 10 million years ago, there was likely a genetic mutation that allowed the common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees and gorillas to develop a different version of this enzyme that was 40 times more efficient at processing ethanol.

2. Ethanol isn’t the only type of alcohol that exists, but the others are highly toxic and consuming even a small amount can be fatal. Symptoms of isopropanol poisoning include organ damage, fluid in the lungs, respiratory failure, bleeding in the stomach, bladder rupture, coma, and death.

3. Methanol is produced in small amounts during the natural production of ethanol. This is why homemade alcohol is illegal and dangerous. Most methanol poisonings happen from tainted alcohol. Methanol is so toxic that only 2 to 8 ounces can be enough to be fatal, one shot is 1.5 ounces. Consuming 10 ml is enough to cause blindness.

Cite this page

Tietz, G. Episode 31: If Alcohol is Toxic, Why can we Drink it? Sober Powered. 2021

Sources

1. Delirrad M, Mohammadi AB. New Methanol Poisoning Outbreaks in Iran Following COVID-19 Pandemic. Alcohol Alcohol. 2020;55(4):347-348.

2. Doheny, K. Toxic Methanol is Hand Sanitizers: Poisonings Continue. WebMD Health News. 2021.

3. Live Science. Bootleg Liquor and Why You Should Not Drink Methanol. 2012

4. Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. What Would Happen if you Drank Rubbing Alcohol? 2019.

5. What Lies Beyond. The “Whiskey Horror” of Christmas 1919. 2019.

6. Carrigan, M. Hominids Adapted to Metabolize Ethanol Long Before Human-Directed Fermentation. PNAS. 2014

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