Tuesday, April 06, 2010


I've done research today with my best pal(Google), I was wondering why my face don't turn red after drinking alcohol, not even a single time... I thot it's a signal of ur body that u can't take it... Well, it turns out that getting red face is rather unhealthy...

Read this;D

Alcohol flush reaction (colloquially referred to as Asian Flush or Asian Glow) is a condition in which the face and/or body experiences flushes or blotches, due to a missense polymorphism that encodes the enzyme, acetaldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH2) [1], normally responsible for breaking down acetaldehyde, a product of the metabolism of alcohol.[2] Flushing, or blushing, is associated with the erythema (reddening caused by dilation of capillaries) of the face, neck, shoulder, and in some cases, the entire body after consumption of alcohol.


Facial flushing is generally said to be common among the Japanese, Korean, and Chinese populations, but this is misleading—people of Northern Chinese ancestry (e.g. Beijingers and Northeastern Chinese) rarely experience alcohol flush reaction since they are genetically similar to Mongolians and Manchus; both of these groups do not commonly experience facial flushing after alcohol intake. On the other hand, this condition is commonly observed amongst individuals of Japanese, Southern Chinese, and Southeast Asian ancestry. Researchers have hypothesized that this is a result of divergent evolutionary paths that separated the DNA sequences coding for ALDH2 in Northeast Asian versus Southeast Asian populations.


Research has shown that a history of facial flushing when drinking is indicative of ALDH2 deficiency, and that an ALDH2-deficient drinker who drinks 2 beers per day has 6 to 10 times the risk of developing esophageal cancer as a drinker not deficient in the enzyme.



From wiki~

SMILE^^ends at 12:52 PM