[ExI] Alcohol and evolution was just curious

[Keith Henson]

Henry Rivera <hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu> wrote:

> >I think I have seen research on this. I?ll look for it on Monday.

> On Aug 9, 2020, at 4:09 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> Does anyone, including Henry, know about the relationship between introversion/extroversion and alcohol consumption?

I would be surprised if there is much of a correlation.

However, there is a strong correlation between the length of time a
population has been exposed to alcohol and the number of people who
are adversely affected by it.

Races who have been exposed for thousands of years tend to be
resistant, and in some cases, we know why right down to the genetic
level.  Asian peoples very often have a defective dehydrogenase gene
so they can't clear the alcohol very fast and get quite sick if they
have more than one or two drinks.  The French seem to have a high
tolerance for the stuff.  The peoples who got agriculture (and
alcohol) more recently, Irish and Russians, for example, have more
problems with it.

Native Americans are badly affected, the classic case being the
Navahoes.  Greenland natives are about 95% alcoholics.  If they have
it, they can't control their use of it.

Makes sense, of course.  Being an alcoholic is not good for your genes.

Keith