Imported Lagers
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True or False: Japanese people get really drunk off Lager because they don’t have the right enzymes?
In: FAQ
7 Aug 2010My mate reckons that Japanese people get really drunk, drinking Lager because they don’t have the right “Enzymes” to “break it down”. I reckon this sounds like absolute b*ll*cks. Who is right?
4 Responses to True or False: Japanese people get really drunk off Lager because they don’t have the right enzymes?
Flavor Vortex
August 7th, 2010 at 6:48 pm
It’s BS.
No enzyme in your body is related to alcohol intoxication. The sensation of being drunk comes from ethyl alcohol entering your bloodstream so only the amount of blood and relative size of your body has much to do with an individual’s level of drunkenness. It could be stereotyped that Asians are typically smaller and therefore biologically lightweight drinkers, but that absolutely isn’t the 100% truth.
Edit:
I disagree with the historical argument of building tolerances. Many of the earliest examples, if not the absolute oldest, were in fact discovered in Asian countries. These have been dated back at least 9000 years.
Snowie
August 7th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
That sounds like nonsense but there is some biology behind what you friend says.
Jason C
August 7th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
its not ‘Japanese’ people its ASIAN people and its not ‘lager’ its ALCOHOL, and its basically true.
Joel
August 7th, 2010 at 7:30 pm
I have met Japanese people who would attest to the first part of the question. A friend of mine who studied Chinese at uni also claims this to be true though I don’t think enzymes have anything to do with it. Apparently it comes from the practice of fermenting alcohol being millennia old in the western world which has given us a gradual resistance to alcohol built-up over centuries. East-Asians supposedly have not had a resistance build-up due to different ways of preserving food/liquid.