Proof: The Science of Booze

by Adam Rogers

The liver makes a few different versions of an enzyme called aldehyde dehydrogenase—ALDH1 and ALDH2 metabolize acetaldehyde. How much of these enzymes your body makes, and how well, is one of the main determinants of whether or not people drink. About half of people of Han Chinese, Taiwanese, and Japanese descent make a version of ALDH2 that doesn’t work at all.

“what causes hangover? Nobody really knows,” says epidemiologist Jonathan Howland. “And what can you do about it? Nobody knows.” It wasn’t even until the last decade that researchers agreed on a basic definition of a hangover, much less started thinking carefully about how to treat it.