What does it mean when people say that Native Americans metabolise alcohol differently than other races.
In: Biology
As was already commented, this is likely not true. However, some people do have less of an enzyme involved in the metabolism of alcohol, which does make them process alcohol differently.
Drinking alcohol, also known as ethyl alcohol (CH3-CH2-OH) is primarily metabolized by an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase. The ethyl alcohol becomes a compound called acetaldehyde (CH3-CH=O).
Acetaldehyde is transformed by an enzyme called aldehyde dehydrogenase into a compound called acetate.
Some people do not produce as much aldehyde dehydrogenase as others. Thus when they drink alcohol, they get a build up of acetaldehyde in the blood. This can cause flushing of the skin, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting. This lack of enzyme is more common in East Asian populations than in European ones. I am not sure about the frequency of this in Native American populations.
Incidentally, the drug Antabuse (disulfiram), which is used to help people remain abstinent from alcohol, inhibits the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase, thus producing the above described reaction.
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Yea. It’s been proven wrong. It’s an old racist myth.
https://www.theverge.com/2015/10/2/9428659/firewater-racist-myth-alcoholism-native-americans
I suppose to answer your question: people said that in the past in an attempt to ignore the injustices and traumas commited to indigenous peoples around the world.
It’s an idea that, as a population, they tend not to produce certain enzymes, which allow the faster processing of alcohol. Similar to how black people are more likely to have sickle cell, or Asians are more prone to diabetes. However, it’s a myth. There does not exist much real evidence that “Native Americans metabolize alcohol differently”.
Not all races have been exposed to alcohol, so their genetics arent as used to dealing with alcohol. This is why scandinavians are really good at drinking alcohol, and why a lot of asians become really red when drinking alcohol.
I’m seeing a lot of posts here that say this is a myth. However, how does one explain the rampant alcoholism that is prevalent in Native American and Inuit populations? It does exist. Why?
So this is something that is technically untrue while having a giant, flashing, * next to it.
When native americans first made contact with the west diseases brought from Europe killed something in the range of 90-95% of all the natives. Can you imagine the trauma the survivors suffered? Imagine everyone in your family being dead from terrible diseases. Imagine knowing that your people, your nation, your tribe, were wiped out. Now you hand those survivors a chemical escape.
Beer and other low alcohol beverages basically go back as far as western history does. Over literally thousands of years we developed social systems, rules, and norms about how folks should drink. But distilled alcohol is a relatively recent invention even for westerners and when it hit the scene it caused HUGE social problems. Our societies literally didn’t know how to cope with working men drinking away their paychecks. When alcohol was introduced for the first time to the natives they got the hard stuff that even we didn’t really know how to handle (and we still don’t really though we have gotten a lot better).
We waged war on the native survivors. It was a war they were never going to win and a war they didn’t have reasonable weapons to fight with. Guns vs. bows and arrows are not some glorious competition of even balance, rather its a friggin slaughter where a professional soldier who has trained his entire life to become competent with a bow and arrow can be easily killed by a 8 year old child handling a rifle for the fifth or sixth time in their life. Horrible, one sided, defeat followed horrible one sided defeat for the already traumatized natives. More great excuses to start drinking.
When the wars were lost and Natives were tossed onto reserves the sexual, medical, and cultural abuse started. Native kids were ripped away from their parents. Native women were raped and sterilised. Key religious sites were desecrated. Once again, a great reason to drink.
And then you get the inter-generational issues. When your grandfather was an alcoholic, and your father is an alcoholic, and your mother is an alcoholic, and you grew up in obviously not the best environment, you are going to be much more vulnerable to that as well.
Then you need to consider the economics and “purpose” of life when living on a reserve. There are not a lot of jobs, and not a lot of opportunities to do what you want in life. Your culture is slowly dying and if you want to be a lawyer or astronaut or world class chef it probably means you have to leave home and contribute to that decline a bit yourself. A lot of people stay on reserves and don’t really have the kind of choices that give life purpose.
When you take all of this trauma and lack of cultural knowledge and systems about alcohol together it creates a population primed for substance abuse issues. So no, Native American’s don’t metabolise alcohol differently, they just have a much better reason for drinking than almost anyone else.
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