Eli5: what specific parts in the body define alcohol tolerance?

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I wonder what defines alcohol tolerance in the biological level. Like because of this part or trait, I can drink x amount of bottles compared to the other guy that can only drink y amount od bottles.

Its said that you can develop alcohol tolerance, so I wonder which parts of the body change to reflect that.

The only trait that I know of currently is the size of the body since technically given the same amount of alcohol, a smaller body will be filled up more compared to a larger body.

In: Biology

4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Hi!

There are so many issues.

* Blood volume – A typical adult has a blood volume of approximately 5 liters, with females and males having approximately the same blood percentage by weight (approx 7 to 8%) so a 100 kg (220 lb) guy has 7-8 kg of blood. (1 Kg is approx 1 l for fluids based mostly on water.) A 50 kg person (110 lb) would have half that blood volume.

When they calculate blood alcohol content (BAC) our legal limit is 0.08. For a BAC of 0.10 (0.10% or one tenth of one percent) means that there is 1.0 g (.001 of a kg) of alcohol for every 1 L of blood.

* Genetics – some people groups are lacking the enzyme [Alcohol dehydrogenase](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_dehydrogenase) which is part of the pathway for breaking down alcohol. These people do not process alcohol as quickly. These people need a longer time to process alcohol to get sober. This is specifically the ADH1B gene

* Gender – Women are generally more sensitive to alcohol

* Age – older people have slower metabolic rates, and lower “total body water”

* liver, kidney, pancreas function

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