
Common symptoms
"nausea, facial redness and a pounding heart"
When drinking vodka, I exhibit all three symptoms. Presumably they're feeding the rats vodka in quantity to put them off drinking more alcohol?
Scientists based in Chile and Colorado have carried out astonishing research which appears to offer a cure for that scourge of modern society - alcoholism in rats. In a paper to be published in the January edition of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, Yedy Israel of the Universidad de Chile and Richard Deitrich of …
liver () {
AlcoholDehydrogenase(substrate) {
if (substrate == alcohol)
return acetaldehyde;
}
AldehydeDehydrogenase(substrate) {
if (substrate == acetaldehyde)
return acetic acid;
}
}
In heavy drinkers (this means you) the first function is a lot more efficient than the second, leading to a build up of acetaldehyde in the body when alcohol is consumed.
One way in which alcohol can become addictive is thought to be because acetaldehyde interacts with some neurotransmitters so as to mimic the effects of endorphins or opiates on the reward pathways of the brain, thus inducing a positive mood.
The boffins are suggesting that with his Aldehyde Dehydrogenase completely disabled by the drug, the hardened boozer would get his 'aldehyde high' from half a shandy, and thus not go on to consume the three bottles of vodka that would usually be required.
...more dangerous to the body than ethanol..??
Sounds like a crap idea.
Instead, you should find a way of releasing frigging boatloads of the different alcohol dehydrogenase enzymes into them, such that when they drank booze their body cleared it too quick to get drunk.
This could also double up as a "shit, I really need to drive home, but am too pissed" pill.
With the drinking proclivities of the rats effectively curtailed...and the humans being able to swear off alcohol through metabolic response....that makes for a glut of spirits on the market!
Which, in turn, drives the price down....
Which, in turn, would lure people to buy more....
Which would lead to, presumably, more alcohol consumption................err...wait a minute....
I feel dizzy...it is either the double vodka with the vodka chaser...or my carefully crafted circular logic.