Why does your face turn red or pale when you drink? The scientific explanation of how much alcohol you drink and why your face turns red or pale when you drink

"Are people who turn red when drinking more suitable for drinking, or people who turn pale when drinking more suitable for drinking? Which type of people will damage their liver after drinking?" "People who turn red when drinking more often are more likely to develop esophageal cancer, and people who turn pale when drinking more often are more likely to develop liver cancer." However, no matter which type of person is it, try to drink in moderation, don't drink too much, or drink too much to avoid harming your health. Here, Encyclopedia Knowledge Network has found some explanations about a person's alcohol tolerance and whether they turn red or pale when drinking.

Reasons for blushing after drinking

"People who blush when drinking don't get drunk easily, and people who blush when drinking can drink" is often used as a reason to persuade people to drink at banquets. However, a Japanese study shows that people who don't drink much and blush when drinking are about 12 times more likely to get esophageal cancer than others if they drink too much.

Experts point out that after alcohol enters the human body, it is broken down into acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is a substance that is harmful to the human body. There is an enzyme in the human body that can break down acetaldehyde. For people who are not good at drinking, the decomposition function of this enzyme is generally weak, so they will blush when they drink .

Acetaldehyde has the function of dilating capillaries, and the dilation of facial capillaries is the reason for blushing. So people who blush after drinking alcohol can quickly convert ethanol into acetaldehyde, which means they have efficient alcohol dehydrogenase. But we can't forget another enzyme, acetaldehyde dehydrogenase. People who blush after drinking alcohol only have the former enzyme but not the latter enzyme, so acetaldehyde accumulates rapidly in the body and cannot be metabolized for a long time, so their faces will be red for a long time. But everyone has experience that the redness will gradually fade after 1-2 hours. This is because the P450 in the liver slowly converts acetaldehyde into acetic acid, which then enters the TCA cycle and is metabolized.

What's the matter with people who are good at drinking ?

The more these people drink, the paler their faces become. At a certain point, they suddenly can't stand it anymore and become completely drunk. That's because such people don't have highly active alcohol dehydrogenase and acetaldehyde dehydrogenase, and they mainly rely on P450 in the liver to slowly oxidize (because P450 is a group of oxidases with relatively low specificity). So, why do such people give people the impression that they can drink a lot? That's because they rely on body fluids to dilute alcohol, and the bigger they are, the more they feel they can drink. Under normal circumstances, they will fall into a coma only when the alcohol concentration exceeds 0.1%. For most southerners, this is half a catty of liquor, while northerners, due to their large body size, can drink 8 taels to one catty of liquor. But no matter who he is, if his face becomes paler the more he drinks, it's best not to exceed half a catty, otherwise there is a possibility of acute alcohol poisoning.

What happens if a person has both highly active alcohol dehydrogenase and highly active acetaldehyde dehydrogenase? He/she is the legendary drunkard. How to judge whether he/she is a drunkard? See if he/she sweats a lot. Because if both enzymes are highly active, alcohol will quickly turn into acetic acid and enter the TCA cycle to generate heat, so he/she will have a lot of heat and sweat.

If you meet such a person, you can only consider yourself unlucky. Even ten or eight normal people cannot beat him. Fortunately, there are not many such people, about one in 100,000. One thing I want to remind everyone is that people who have red faces after drinking are not easy to damage the liver, while people with pale faces after drinking are particularly prone to liver damage. People with red faces are generally less persuaded to drink, so they drink less. They feel sleepy after drinking, but they will be energetic again after sleeping for 15-30 minutes. People with pale faces often do not know their bottom line and drink excessively in high excitement until they are drunk. The alcohol in their bodies accumulates because there is no highly active enzyme to process it, causing liver damage. Alcoholic liver damage generally only occurs in these people. People with red faces can drink for several consecutive meals even if they vomit, while people with pale faces need more time to rest because it takes one or two days to metabolize alcohol.

By the way, according to relevant research, people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces (descendants of the ancient Wu and Yue states) seem to be the origin of the red face gene, which means that most of these people have high activity of alcohol dehydrogenase. Most northerners have white faces. So if you were born in the north and have a red face, what does it mean? The answer is obvious, because the red face gene is a dominant gene.

This scientific study concluded that: "People with red face who drink too much are more likely to develop esophageal cancer, and people with white face who drink too much are more likely to develop liver cancer." However, no matter who you are, try to drink in moderation and don't drink too much to avoid harming your health .