E31: If Alcohol is Toxic, Why Can We Drink it?

Gill discusses why humans are even able to drink ethanol in the first place. Ethanol is toxic, and we aren’t able to drink diluted versions of other alcohols without severe consequences, so she's been curious why we even evolved to process ethanol. She explains why scientists think we evolved enzymes to process alcohol, and what happens if you drink the other alcohols, which have very similar structures to ethanol. She ends the episode with a couple of stories about people consuming alcohol thinking it was just ethanol, but it was actually tainted with methanol.

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Disclaimer: all of the information described in this podcast is my interpretation of the research combined with my opinion. This is not medical advice.

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