Is Asian Flush Evolutionarily Adaptive?

September 11, 2007 6:39 AM

Asian? Red in the face? Asian flush, the reddening of the face which occurs when some Asians drink, may serve an evolutionarily adaptive benefit.
posted by 2shay (36 comments total)

Its good to see a positive spin on 'the flush'. I'm so tired of the same old comments about "how red my face is."
posted by 2shay at 6:43 AM on September 11, 2007

Oh really? Interesting theory.
posted by absalom at 6:51 AM on September 11, 2007

i wonder what the statistics look like for asian nationalities other than chinese, korean, and japanese. my face gets really hot when i drink, but not red. i'm not sure if it counts as 'flush'. it hasnt ever stopped my from drinking a lot.
posted by fuzzypantalones at 6:53 AM on September 11, 2007

I doubt that it's evolutionary, frankly. Use of alcohol in humans hasn't been around for an appreciable length of time when considering evolutionary timescales.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 6:55 AM on September 11, 2007 [3 favorites]

Good point dipsomaniac. Its only been around for a few thousand years.
posted by 2shay at 7:00 AM on September 11, 2007

Social mores about drinking don't disprove the theory of adaptive benefit. Instead, I'd be curious to see why they think this adaptation hasn't happened in every culture that has developed fermented beverages.

Here is some "interesting" logic: While politicians decry the dangers of drugs, alcohol abuse and alcoholism is the greater contributor to our societal ills, costing the U.S. $148 billion each year. If we were drink-averse, the costs, monetary and otherwise, would be eliminated.

Perhaps that's because alcohol is readily available? if the only legal high was huffing gasoline, the 148 billion referenced would be spent at the gas station instead of the bar. The desire for inebriation runs deeper than a preference for ethanol.
posted by dubold at 7:05 AM on September 11, 2007

Not all Asians suffer from the defective allele, I believe it's about 50%-- I have it, my sister doesn't.

The symptoms can be greatly reduced in most individuals by consuming 20 mg of famotidine prior to drinking, although no one is quite sure why. One theory is that it slows the conversion of alcohol to acetaldehyde.

Interestingly, the drub Antabuse, used in the treatment of alcholism, does the exact opposite-- it causes a normal person to experience the "Asian Flush" when drinking.
posted by justkevin at 7:06 AM on September 11, 2007 [2 favorites]

drub = drug.
posted by justkevin at 7:07 AM on September 11, 2007

Dr. Li's work seems to say is that there is a genetic influence in preference of "high consumption" of alcohol in rats, and that there may be a genetic component to differences in Asian alcohol usage. I'm not sure how you get from there to "flushed cheeks are an evolutionary adaptation."
posted by zennie at 7:12 AM on September 11, 2007

Technically, alcohol is older than humanity. Fruits and other organic material laying around can ferment without any human intervention. Early man could have sought these out easily. Supposedly, animals can be taught this or can learn this on their own, but this explanation seems a little convenient.

Evolution isnt some master mind always looking out for you. This is like saying 'Peanut allergies keep people from eating fatty peanuts, thus stopping obesity and heart disease.' No it doesnt, it just sickens or kills some unsuspecting kid. Theres no upside to every little human allergy.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:13 AM on September 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

The article says that the reduced life expectency of heavy drinkers would give the non-drinkers an evolutionary advantage. But it doesn't mention the increased reproductive rate of people when they consume alcohol.
posted by Space Coyote at 7:14 AM on September 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

Use of alcohol in humans hasn't been around for an appreciable length of time...

Hasn't it? How would one be able to tell? Discarded grape skins and yeasts probably don't fossilize too well. Even accidental fermentation is pretty common--just gather up some fallen fruit and cram it in a vat and you are likely to get something disgusting but alcoholic.
posted by DU at 7:27 AM on September 11, 2007

Will I get into trouble if I talk about the lesser known Asian frush?
posted by uncanny hengeman at 7:27 AM on September 11, 2007

Would an adaptation that lessens one's alcohol use be an evolutionary advantage or disadvantage?
My experience indicates that alcohol use is responsible for far more births than deaths.
posted by rocket88 at 7:32 AM on September 11, 2007

The discovery of late Stone Age beer jugs has established the fact that intentionally fermented beverages existed at least as early as the Neolithic period (cir. 10,000 BC), and it has been suggested that beer may have preceded bread as a staple; wine clearly appeared as a finished product in Egyptian pictographs around 4,000 BC[1]

history of alcohol
posted by fuzzypantalones at 7:32 AM on September 11, 2007

Okay - am I right in thinking that the 'evolutionary' explanation for vaso-dilation in Asian drinkers goes something like this:

On the European landmass, primitive tribes were largely rural-agrarian, so people had to distill their water into booze to make it safe to drink. Hence a raised tolerance for alcohol. The primitive Asian tribes were nomadic, moving from one clean source of water to the next, hence no resistance built up.

So my understanding was that the 'flush' is a sort of default human response to what is essentially a poison, but that Europeans developed a resistance by necessity. Um... does that make any sense at all?
posted by RokkitNite at 7:33 AM on September 11, 2007

Evolution (selective pressure that causes individuals with certain traits to reproduce less than others) is not the same as variation that happens to be present in the population and may be related to recreational behaviors. There may in fact be no reason for those traits to exist, other than they piggybacked on some successful ancestor.
posted by zennie at 7:57 AM on September 11, 2007

...intentionally fermented beverages existed at least as early as the Neolithic period...

And don't forget that alcohol wouldn't have to be intentionally fermented in order for humans to have an adaptation related to it. I mean, we had an adaptation to eat yummy food even before we were farmers, so why not an adaptation to drink/avoid alcohol before were were brewers?
posted by DU at 7:57 AM on September 11, 2007

I'd say it makes sense, but is not supported by the article or the historical evidence.
posted by absalom at 7:57 AM on September 11, 2007

Asian flush? In my family we've always referred to it as the Irish tan...
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 7:59 AM on September 11, 2007 [2 favorites]

It’s evolutionarily adaptive in that you know when to hit on them.
Hey, baby, nice shoe...er, flush.

So, what then would this say about Native Americans and alcohol and evolutionary adaptivity?
Nah, I don’t buy it. There’s too many cultural variables for not drinking so much (not to mention as absalom points out thru links, conflict in observation and interpretation). Unless you get red in the face when you missed buying a round, that’d be a handy social adaptation for the rest of us.
posted by Smedleyman at 8:05 AM on September 11, 2007

Sounds good in theory but I'm with absalom.

From my experience, Japanese businessmen like their liquor. When possible, with a karaoke chaser.
posted by miss lynnster at 8:08 AM on September 11, 2007

From my experience, Japanese businessmen like their liquor.

Mine too. And most humans flush when they drink, i think--it's not just Asians.
posted by amberglow at 8:21 AM on September 11, 2007

You could say that the more rigid social rules/prevention of embarrassment and faux pas/etc in many parts of Asia combined with the known embarrassing effects of too much drinking have been responsible for lower drinking rates, but i wouldn't ascribe it to evolution.
posted by amberglow at 8:23 AM on September 11, 2007

ha ha, the irish tan! my family uses that too!
posted by uaudio at 8:25 AM on September 11, 2007

On the European landmass, primitive tribes were largely rural-agrarian, so people had to distill their water into booze to make it safe to drink. Hence a raised tolerance for alcohol. The primitive Asian tribes were nomadic, moving from one clean source of water to the next, hence no resistance built up.
But wouldn't a raised or lowered tolerance for alcohol have to be evident only where alcohol was omnipresent for a long enough time for it to confer or hurt advantages in reproducing? I can see that in England where they drank beer/mead/etc instead of water for ages it would certainly have helped to be able to tolerate it, but what about in regions where alcohol was limited to religious ceremonies or special occasions for eons and only recently more widely drunk?
posted by amberglow at 8:28 AM on September 11, 2007

The great thing about being an evolutionary biologist is that you get to make up stuff and no one can ever really verify it.
posted by electroboy at 8:29 AM on September 11, 2007

and then what about places like Czech Rep and Slovakia, famous for beer, but also having abundant fresh water sources?
posted by amberglow at 8:30 AM on September 11, 2007

Actually alchohol consumption was considered healthy back in the old days, and with no driving and plenty of violence and early death it probably wasn't much of an evolutionary impediment. I mean, what diffrence does it make if your liver would go bad at 45 if you died in battle at 27, or of typhoid or something.

Drinking alchohol, rather then pure water, would greatly increase people's life span.

In China and other places, people drank tea, which was boiled. The boiling would also reduce water-born disease.

So it's likely that the reverse is true, alchohol tolerance is an evolutionary advantage in non-asians, not the other way around.
posted by Paris Hilton at 8:35 AM on September 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

The great thing about being an evolutionary biologist is that you get to make up stuff and no one can ever really verify it.

You mean evolutionary psychologist? Certainly you're not claiming that all of modern biology is non-verifiable. Because there is no such thing as a 'non-evolutionary biologist', unless you're a creationist or IDer
posted by Paris Hilton at 8:36 AM on September 11, 2007 [4 favorites]

Me and my brother have it, as does our father but our mother does not. Go figure.

I'm fascinated now by the use of famotidine as Justkevin pointed out, like others who want to get their drink on.
posted by cazoo at 8:41 AM on September 11, 2007

From The Ghost Map, quoted at greater length here:

In a community lacking pure-water supplies, the closest thing to "pure" fluid was alcohol. Whatever health risks were posed by beer (and later wine) in the early days of agrarian settlements were more than offset by alcohol's antibacterial properties. Dying of cirrhosis of the liver in your forties was better than dying of dysentery in your twenties.

If there's enough selection pressure involved, humans absolutely can evolve dramatically in just a couple of generations. People who lost the gene pool lottery don't live long enough to have kids, and people who won it had a lot.

See also here as well:

After Soto's army left, notes Timothy K. Perttula, an archaeological consultant in Austin, Texas, the Caddo stopped building community centers and began digging community cemeteries. Between Soto's and La Salle's visits, Perttula believes, the Caddoan population fell from about 200,000 to about 8,500—a drop of nearly 96 percent.

posted by mhoye at 8:48 AM on September 11, 2007

Sorry, that last link doesn't seem to work. Let me try again.
posted by cazoo at 8:49 AM on September 11, 2007

Distillation and fermentation is a good long term preservation method.
posted by electroboy at 8:56 AM on September 11, 2007

MetaFilter: you get to make up stuff and no one can ever really verify it.
posted by Doohickie at 9:29 AM on September 11, 2007

Lactose tolerance (nyt) appears to have developed rather quickly as far as evolutionary time scales go. I agree with mhoye, given enough selection pressure, adaptations can happen relatively quickly.
posted by effwerd at 9:30 AM on September 11, 2007