Why do drugs so drastically affect one person versus another? One person can take a sip of alcohol once and be an alcoholic for life. One person can take OTC narcotics and have almost no effect, while another person takes the same drug and knocked out for hours. Why are there such vast differences when for the most part, our biology is so similar?
In: Chemistry
A whole lot of biochemistry goes into this answer and I’m probably not the most qualified to ELI5 it all and the answer is complicated.
Things like patient size(height/wt), dose, ethnicity can all play a role. For example we know people of Asian heritage produce less of the enzyme that breaks down alcohol(alcohol dehydrogenase) and therefore get drunk easier.
We also know that “ginger” people process anesthesia differently.
The reasons aren’t quite fully understood. But it comes down to biochemistry, dose, patient size. There is a TON going on.
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