Next time you're at the pub with friends, take it easy on the lightweights—the ones who are getting a little silly after just a couple of drinks. That might be a blessing in disguise, according to a new study, because the 10 to 20 percent of people whose genetics make them especially sensitive to booze might also be at greatly reduced risk to develop alcoholism.
In the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, Kirk Wilhelmsen and colleagues identified a particular gene associated with the easily intoxicated. The gene in question encodes an enzyme called CYP2E1, responsible for metabolizing not just alcohol in the brain, but also other substances like acetaminophen (Tylenol).
The CYP2E1 enzyme works in the brain, which is not the major player in alcohol metabolism, says Wilhelmsen, a genetics professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Medicine. Another enzyme, in the liver, "does most of ...
