I read that alcohol dehydrogenase enzymes are what help you process alcohol and after years of drinking you develop a deficiency in these enzymes, therefore making your tolerance higher (you need to drink more to get the same “drunk” feeling).
My question is: Why can’t we just medically raise our levels of these enzymes back up to where they used to be, or even higher, so that we get drunk faster and therefore drink less?
Likewise, why isn’t there a treatment for alcoholism that tries to balance this enzyme to a “normal” level in order to more normalize someone’s drinking habits?
to answer the first reply, acetaldehyde dehydrogenase will detoxify acetaldehyde to acetic acid. Is that still as fatal?
#1 by toranagaly on June 26, 2010 - 10:37 pm
It might be LETHAL to drink alcohol in such a case . The enzyme breaks alcohol down to toxic compounds , acetaldhyde being the main one .
THEN
Acetaldehyde and other preliminary toxic results are FURTHER processed by OTHER enzyme systems to give an energy rich molecule called “acetyl coenzyme-A ” .
So if the enzyme on the first limb of that process (dehydrogenase) was injected WITHOUT the enzymes of the second limb , the toxic metabolites (like acetaldhyde) will accumulate FASTER than the normal levels of the enzymes of the second limb CAN ACCOMODATE .
That will result in a spike in acetaldhyde level with even little alcohol intake , potentially leading to death or blindness etc
Edit
You mean inject BOTH enzymes ?
Well that might work except that I doubt those reactions actually take place in serum . The enzyme conversion , at least the final steps (beginning with acetaldhyde) takes place EXCLUSIVELY in HEPATOCYTES (liver cells) , inside the cell environment .
An injected enzyme might work for reactions in the blood stream , but not for intracellular reactions , unless it is also modified to cross the cell wall and enter the hepatocyte .
Acetic acid = acetyl coenzymeA (acetic acid BOUND to a carrier ) , it is not toxic , it is an energy storage molecule that is produced during cell respiration and metabolism of fat .
Edit
I have a problem understanding this . It ultimately depends on what EXACTLY causes drunkenness : free alcohol or its metabolites .
The explanation of tolerance by a deficiency in metabolizing enzymes is contradictory .
It means that chronic drinkers will have higher blood alcohol levels than normal people with for the same amount of ingested alcohol , since it will not be metabolized .
That also means that drunkenness is NOT caused by alcohol itself , but rather by it’s metabolites .
HOWEVER
Even in such a state , the amount of drunkenness cannot be increased by increasing the enzyme concentration simply because thats how enzymes work . The enzymatic reaction is limited by the amount of the precursor . So while decreasing the enzyme WILL decrease the resulting products , INCREASING the enzyme will only increase the production point to a certain level which is the optimal enzyme concentration , after that , the rate of production depends ONLY on the precursor concentration , no matter how much enzyme you add .
SO
Hypothetically , IF the enzyme concentration CAN be manipulated , whether by injection or otherwise , it might bring the tolerance of CHRONIC drinkers to the normal level before the years of alcohol abuse , however I doubt it would decrease the normal tolerance of a normal person (so that the alcohol intake of such a person might become low)