*Hic*! (^_^)

Just had a beer... at 3am.. after finishing my tutorial for later... 1230pm *hic* (not really *hic* la, but just wanna add an effect...)

Btw, beer here is really cheap. 24 bottles of this for $29. =D
Too bad I don't drink that much.

Alcohol is in the form of ethanol in beverages. (CH3CH2OH)


Anyway here is how it works on the body....

Ethanol is metabolised into acetaldehyde (by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase), then to acetic acid (by the enzyme acetaldehyde dehydrogenase).

It is the acetaldehyde that makes us feel woozy. How?

We have 2 kinds of nerves in our bodies. The excitatory and the inhibitatory nerves. Acetaldehyde suppresses the excitatory nerves and increases the activities of the inhibitatiry nerves. That's why when people get drunk, they tend to become sluggish, mental awareness drops, and control bodily functions not as good.

So people who get drunk easily don't have much of the second enzyme (especially so in Asians, e.g Me), and have lots of acetaldehyde in the blood when they drink. People who don't get drunk easily either have lots of the second enzyme, or are lacking in the first enzyme.

Also, too much alcohol causes liver cirrhosis. Liver is the organ that filters all the crap in your body, so too much alcohol will overwork the liver, and the liver cells will just die.

I also read somewhere that people who live near the equator, and who are hairless, are predisposed to cirrhosis. (For real.. someone wrote this n a book)

Apparently studies have shown that coffee consumption may protect against cirrhosis, especially alcoholic cirrhosis. But please don't quote me.

Sign in Victoria, Australia

*hic*!