Heavy drinker or underweight (like me)? Blame it on your genes. A study published last week shows how much our genes influence our tolerance to alcohol and why some people drink more than others, at least in the short term.
Like most people in the UK, I drink alcohol at least once a week, but for me it’s a love-hate relationship.
Although I’ve never been a heavy drinker – I get migraines if I drink too much – I do occasionally enjoy red wine with a meal, and sometimes at night.
But these days I get drunk faster and with less alcohol than I once did, and the hangovers are much, much worse. This is not surprising, as most of us become more susceptible to alcoholism as we age.
This is because our liver doesn’t work as well as it used to, but as we age we lose muscle and put on more fat. Fat, unlike muscle, is not good at drinking alcohol. But why are some people better at handling alcohol, regardless of age?
Gender plays a role: Men typically drink more alcohol than women, mainly because we’re bigger and have more muscle. But most of it depends on the possibilities of genetic drawing.
Convincing evidence for this is a study conducted by the University of California San Diego School of Medicine in the United States.
Researchers looked at this question by browsing data from more than 3 million people at the genetics company 23andMe (one of the first businesses to analyze your DNA from a saliva sample to provide information about your genes as well as your ancestors).
I have analyzed my DNA and found that my ancestors are primarily European, with some Middle Eastern. I also had a surprising amount of genes I inherited from a distant Neanderthal ancestor (twice the normal level) and some studies suggest they may be important to my immune system.
As well as your ancestry, you also learn a lot about your health, including whether you have genes that predispose you to gain more weight or dementia (the answer is yes to both questions in my case). ‘No’).
Of course, such analysis isn’t foolproof—we don’t know all the genes linked to weight gain, for example, and how you live your life can change the way your genes are expressed. However, the new study shows that some people have a certain set of genes that mean they experience more serious side effects, including nausea and bloating, when they drink even moderate amounts of alcohol, the researchers wrote in eBioMedicine last month. .
Normally, when you drink booze, the alcohol (or ethanol) in your drink is converted by your body into a toxin called acetaldehyde. This is then converted into carbon dioxide and water, which is excreted from your body through your breath or urine.
If you have genes that quickly convert alcohol to acetaldehyde, or if you don’t have the genes that make the enzyme that breaks down acetaldehyde, this toxin builds up in you and you get sick more quickly if you drink too much. Not surprisingly, people with these genes, like me, tend to drink less than others because of the short-term, unpleasant effect.
According to this research, we don’t tend to like whiskey and are more prone to washouts and ‘wine headaches’. Researchers have found that because our genes mean we drink more, we are less likely to develop liver disease or depression; We also have lower blood pressure, a lower risk of heart disease and fewer fractures than usual (probably because we don’t fall as much).
But it’s not all good news. Interestingly, the researchers found that people with a genetic predisposition to alcohol intolerance were more likely to develop skin cancer, were more likely to be emotional eaters (when you eat to help you cope with your emotions, rather than just because you’re hungry), and were also more likely to be short-sighted.
The researchers are currently trying to unravel these unlikely links.
I tried to convince myself for a long time that the ups and downs of drinking, like the sociable and temporary pleasure, outweighed the downsides (dizziness and headaches).
Then, a few months ago, I decided to try to quit drinking during the week.
I find that resolution relatively easy to stick to, so I try to make it consistent. I’ll let you know how I go.
I’m not good at small talk so sometimes I struggle when talking to strangers. In matters like politics, I avoid talking to someone I just met when things turn out bad.
But a new study published in the journal Psychological Science suggests that I’m being overly cautious and missing out because of it.
Volunteers said they found these conversations eye-opening, as they were asked to discuss topics such as abortion and climate change with people who held very different views.
And the volunteers said they enjoyed joining someone whose views were most against them, which was encouraging.
The ‘unhealthy’ foods I’ve been wishing I’d eaten for years now
In medical school in the 1980s, we were taught that the main reason our patients were overweight and at risk for heart disease was eating too much fat (found in foods like milk, cheese, and butter).
A consultant told us that ‘eating saturated fat clogs the arteries just like passing fat in the faeces clogs the cistern’.
Since then there have been many studies discrediting this message – but it’s still the advice you’ll hear from the NHS.
We were told to avoid foods high in cholesterol, such as eggs, and no more than one a week. Supermarkets were soon stocked with ‘cholesterol-free’ foods.
But this was nonsense and the cholesterol we eat has very little effect on our blood levels.
In a recent study (presented at the American Cardiology Conference), people who were asked to eat 12 eggs a week for four months had no measurable change in their cholesterol levels compared to those who ate just two eggs a week.
And the dangers of cholesterol seem to be seriously overstated. We’ve long been told that because eating fat raises ‘bad’ or LDL cholesterol levels – it does – then high LDL levels inevitably lead to heart disease. But that is not true.
A study published last month in BMJ Open, which looked at data from more than 170,000 middle-aged patients, found that people with LDL levels higher than recommended were less likely to die from a heart attack than those whose LDL levels were at or below recommended levels. This is something other studies have found.
Rather than LDL, a better predictor of mortality is the ratio of your total cholesterol to your HDL score. We need cholesterol to make hormones like estrogen and testosterone; It is also an important part of your cell membrane.
So I eat eggs most mornings these days. I also happily eat butter, full-fat Greek yogurt, and skimmed milk. I cook with olive oil and eat a lot of oily fish.
I only wish I could go back in time and advise my youth that decades of eating low-fat diets would offer me no protection later in life.