Talk:Alcohol tolerance

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are there things other than alcohol that increase alcohol tolerance
will 10 grams of sorbitol or xylitol as candy per day raise alcohol dehydrogenase levels like 10g actual etoh alcohol, are there other common materials that raise alcohol tolerance without side effects. I am wondering as a reference, www dot cancer dot gov/cancertopics/pdq/genetics/breast-and-ovarian/HealthProfessional/page1 says women that drink more than 10g of alcohol per day have 10 pct higher breast cancer rate, thus anything that ups alcohol tolerance may also reduce cancer.

Tolerance
Does metabolism affect alcohol tolerance? Some guy 09:08, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Im not 100% but I believe the speed of detoxifying alcohol in the body is the same at all times, and only varies to small degrees. In between people it will be different, but in the infdividual it will generally stay the same unless they drink heavily, meaning their tolerance will grow as the enzymes involved are found in higher numbers. When your doctor test to see if your an alkie, he tests the enzymes, and not the alcohol content. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.184.30.132 (talk) 23:04, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

same BAC values
That was what I was thinking, but according to about.com the effects at same BAC values can be much lower for people accustomed to alcohol. This is called Functional Tolerance:

"Humans and animals develop tolerance when their brain functions adapt to compensate for the disruption caused by alcohol in both their behavior and their bodily functions. This adaptation is called functional tolerance (2). Chronic heavy drinkers display functional tolerance when they show few obvious signs of intoxication even at high blood alcohol concentrations (BAC's), which in others would be incapacitating or even fatal (3)."

http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/alerts/l/blnaa28.htm

145.97.201.67 00:05, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Aren't there little miniature organs that your liver produces that spread out through your body and assist in processing toxins? I can never remember their name.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.70.113 (talk) 23:39, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I find this article very misleading. For one, alcohol tolerance is affected by other factors not mentioned here, such as GABA receptors downregulation - this can be achieved not only by heavy alcohol consumption, but also by other drugs, the most known of them is GHB —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.165.11.10 (talk) 20:31, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

European Evolution
The only was europeans could have 'evolved' alcohol tolerance is if tolerance gave some sort of reproductive advantage, which conventional wisdom says it does not. You could argue that people with low tolerance died of alcohol related disease more so than high tolerance, but this is a highly unlikely scenario unless alcoholism was epedemic in eurpoean history and is unlikely to hit popuations so hard as to cause natural selection to 'select' toerance over non tolerance.

Therefore you can only really conclude that the higher levels of alcohol dehydrogenase was there BEFORE europeans started drinking. Perhaps this enzyme has another utility, or it was just a chance neutral mutationn in the population that gave rise to this fact. Perhaps the gene or group of genes controlling amount of alcohol dehydrogenase in the blood has some other unknown purpose, and this has led to high level.

I think the statement saying Europeans 'evolved tolerance' in the article shows a misundertading of evolutionary theory, and misleads people. It should be removed.

Please could someone edit this, as I cant be bothered as im sure it will just revert back to how it was. A very frusrating fact of wikepeida, meaning I dont bother editing articles... but enter things for discusion.

I got a bit of a personal vendetta against this paragraph in the text because I used to wrongly think this was how evolution worked, and confused me for some time.

Animals only evolve if the new trait gives them a reproductive advantage, and higher alcohol tolerance does NOT give this advantage. Infact it is probably more likely that heavy drinkers have a slightly lower reproductive advantage, as they would less likely be abe to hold together a family or have children due to many factors...

SO CHANGE THE DARN TEXT! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.184.30.132 (talk) 13:29, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * WP:SOFIXIT. tedder (talk) 14:26, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * You haven't read much 17th century European history I gather? Governments legalized alcohol production (distillation) in order to get the populace to accept growing potatoes, which was used for the production. The result was an alcohol related death rate at unprecedented levels, not to mention those that did not die themselves, but failed to raise any children. Tolerance did indeed offer reproductive an advantage. The European level is extreme, but you will find some level of alcohol tolerance in any ethnic group with an agricultural past, and next to non in groups that until recently (or still) live as hunter/gatherers. If you disagree, go find sources that say otherwise. Petter Bøckman (talk) 19:19, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

(Beer drinker - 23:55 - 16/5/2010 Hello Most human cultures have an agricultural past, such as the ancient chinese. It is well known their tolerance for alcohol is relatively low so I'm not sure about this claim you made. I just think it's misleading to say Europeans 'evolved tolerance'... Even someone of low tolerance would not experience the deleterious affects of alcohol related disease till late in life, giving them plenty of time to reproduce spreading their 'low tolerance genes'. This would also have to be coupled with the sudden appearance of a new novel Alcohol Dehydrogenase activity enhancement based upon genetic mutation, and I feel this is unlikely.. As well as taking into account people died young in these times often. Its the same as cancer.... in the west we will not evolve away from cancer due quite simply because people have children before cancer hits them (mostly). The same principle applies here.

The only way Europeans could have evolved tolerance is if the vast majority of people started drinking heavily in childhood, and died in their early teens before they could reproduce. This is a highly unlikely scenario. I'm aware alcohol drinkers were less likely to get water borne diseases, but I just dont believe the effects of this could evolve a high tolerance so quickly and in such a significant way. There are simply some ethnic differences in human physiology that are not to do with the environment but just chance mutations.. and this is one of them.

I know im being anal about this, but I think this statement confuses people in evolutionary theory, and probably is behind a lot of people's lack of understanding, followed by rejection of darwinism.


 * Sorry mate, I don't follow you. How is a case of a trait becoming more common due to selective pressure not evolution? Evolution can happen very quickly, if the pressure is strong enough and the desired trait exists, one generation is all it takes for a noticeable difference. The rate of evolution of alchol dehydrogenase depends on the underlying genetic pathways. It appears all apes have it to some extent (to deal with fermented fruit perhaps?), which means selection had something to work with. If you do not trust my judgement on this (and indeed, you should not), I suggest tracking down article no 7 in the references list and read it through. Notice that tolerance has two main components: Tolerance to the acute poisoning and resistance to developing alcoholism. Bout are at work here.


 * I see you doubt that alcohol can have an effect on the population survivability. I suggest you look up the term "firewater" and it's effect on indigenous societies. Again, do not take my word for it, go check for yourself. Remember that in order to lower survivability, you don't have to die before you can reproduce. If you are too down and out to find a mate or to drunk to feed and tend to your family properly, alcohol will lower your reproductive success. You are not telling me that alcohol and (particularly alcoholism) does not have an effect on families and children, right?


 * The reason Europeans has the highest alcohol tolerance is because Europe is the only place where distilled alcohol has been generally available for several centuries. Chinese and Japanese has had access to wine for millennia, and has resistance accordingly. If you compare them to let's say Inuits or Australian Aborigines you will see that their agricultural background has given them a rather different tolerance level than the "human default".


 * Lastlty: Wikipedia is about verifiability, not about what you or I think is right or wrong. Find relevant solid peer reviewed and/or well respected works saying evolution has nothing to do with it, and I'll rewrite the chapter. --Petter Bøckman (talk) 05:56, 17 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Ok, well please at least change the wording of the text from 'europeans probably evolved' to something less definite, such as 'Europeans may have evolved, or may have developed', as two studies in scientific terms cannot establish a fact of this kind to much certainty. You could even offer a little explanation on one or two mechanisms tolerance may be present. There is no way one can know for sure that Europeans developed tolerance, or a form of tolerance was already present before hand unless they had genetic evidence, which obviously the study authors do not so they base their conclusions on speculation. The point made before is a valid one. Thanks. -- Mark 11:24, 5 June 2010 (GMT)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.184.30.134 (talk)


 * Did you actually read the reference article? I put in a link to an open source web version so that anyone can look it up for themselves. The article shows through mapping of genetic markers that alcohol tolerance has evolved independently in several ethnic groups. No-one has to my knowledge ever suggested that the alcohol tolerance was present in Europeans (or any other population) "before hand". If you do know of reputable sources that says so, please post them here so that the section can be amended and the sources included. Petter Bøckman (talk) 21:17, 7 June 2010 (UTC)


 * The referenced book is [Guns, Germs and Steel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel] by Jared Diamond. I recently finished the book and it says nothing about alcohol tolerance and genetics. I also ran a text search through the book and the only mention of the word "alcohol" is in the sentence The expertise at distillation that medieval Islamic alchemists developed to produce alcohols and perfumes also let them distill petroleum into fractions, some of which proved to be even more powerful incendiaries. , this is on pg 247. Hence, I'm deleting the part which says Europeans have higher alcohol tolerance.Hargup (talk) 17:46, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

As to the discussion of the evolution of alcohol tolerance. It has nothing to do with ethanol metabolism--that is simply a byproduct. Alcohol dehydrogenases function to metabolize alcohol that could become toxic. Alcohol like retinol (vitamin a) can reach toxic levels if there is no metabolism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.5.167.23 (talk) 00:33, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes but the levels of an enzyme can fluctuate due to selective pressure in a population, due to the environment. There is a good case to be made that Europeans may have evolved tolerance, although I'm highly skeptical of that, as the selective pressure of alcohol on people of child bearing age in pre-industrial Europe would not have had much effect, and would not likely produce the markedly higher levels of Alcohol Dehydrogenase in Caucasian blood. It is more likely that there is another reason, probably that Europeans often ate rotton fruit, or were ingesting Ethanol for other reasons apart from getting drunk. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.94.31.107 (talk) 02:13, 3 September 2013 (UTC)


 * There isn't much fruit to be had in Europe to begin with, rotten or otherwise. Or rather, there's a lot of fruit, but it all ripen in the autumn (contrary to the tropics where fruit ripen all year around), which may be part of why Europeans seem to have a head start on alcohol production. As for when selection for higher tolerance occurred, some of the main pressure seems to be with the introduction of destillation, i.e. industrial rather than pre-industrial Europe. However, if you doubt that alcohol dependency can have a devastating effect on people in child bearing age (not to mention the well being, i.e fitness, of their children) in pre-industrial societies, then I suggest you google some alcoholism and indigenous people topics. Petter Bøckman (talk) 16:49, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Re-read the source material!
I'm not sure who is 'taking charge' of this particular article, but please be more careful. In one read-through I found several errors.

In the last section, for instance, Europeans have a higher tolerance but are LESS likely to become alcoholics? That goes against both medical thinking/logic and actual reported rates of alcohol abuse by region (See wiki entry on alcoholism). Also, the enzyme responsible for flush is not alcohol dehydrogenase, it is acetaldehyde dehydrogenase. And it is not a "lack of the genetically coded enzyme". It is a mutation in the coding sequence of the enzyme, making it less efficient. Btw, enzymes are all genetically coded, there isn't the need to specify that.

Check sources! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nutmeganddramamine (talk • contribs) 03:42, 8 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, Europeans are less likely to become alcoholics than e.g. indigenous Australians. This should be uncontroversial. I have never come across a source saying otherwise. The sources in the alcoholism pages do not say indigenous Americans are less likely to develop alcoholism, only that they should be if the alcohol dehydrogenas was the only relevant factor (which it is obviously not).


 * The section on flush reaction is not the bit I was debating (nor one I have written). Feel free to improve it! --Petter Bøckman (talk) 06:59, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

ugghh...I fully agree! I have only just read through this article and am instantly struck by the shoddy writing. Overall: ▪it's disorganised, ▪the sensible subheadings are     followed by information that is woefully inadequate, ▪entire article is severely citation-deficient

I intended on reading this as an overview, viz. quick info gathering to understand which processes comprise human tolerance to consumed ethanol. It's bizarre encountering such a poorly written Wikipedia article on a scientific topic😕 When I have time I'll gladly begin tackling this article's numerous issues😤 Elysium0820 (talk) 15:04, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

I have reorganized a bit and added a few sources and a bit of text. Petter Bøckman (talk) 20:02, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Africans
In the section on ethnicity, there is curiously no mention of people of African ancestry. Why is this? Stonemason89 (talk) 03:08, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd guess the reason is Africa is a large continent, and Africans include people with hunter gatherer, pastoral, farmer and high culture background (and alcohol resistance accordingly). Saying something about Africans as a collected group is going to be very difficult.Petter Bøckman (talk) 18:18, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * But there is also nothing on Australians, or islanders, about which you can hardly make the same argument. It seems the article is inconsistently/incompletely written.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.9.168.249 (talk) 09:18, 9 June 2014 (UTC)