Why is drinking addictive, why can drinking breaks, why can others drink so much? What happens when you drink fake drinks? Can drinking alcohol be healthy? There is always a group of drunkards around, and they don't understand why they love wine so much.
God made water, man made wine.
First, why is drinking addictive?
Scholars at the University of Pennsylvania once did a study and found that acetic acid produced by alcohol metabolism changes the brain and is the root cause of alcohol addiction. The researchers labeled alcohol with isotopes and then injected the mice with alcohol carrying isotope labels into their abdominal chambers.
As a result, isotopic markers appeared on the prefrontal lobe and hippocampal histone proteins in mouse brains. Label acetic acid with isotopes and then inject the labeled acetate into the intraperitoneal cavity of mice, and isotopic labeling will also appear on histone proteins in mouse brains. This shows that drinking alcohol changes the brain through the role of acetic acid, and alcohol addiction may be formed in this way. To confirm this conjecture, the researchers designed a cage in which the cage was filled with light salt water and diluted alcohol, and the mice moved freely in the cage. It turned out that at the beginning of the experiment, the mice stayed on both sides of the cage for about the same amount of time. But after drinking alcohol intermittently for 4 days, the mice, like those who were addicted to alcohol, could no longer be separated from the side of the wine.
Next, the researchers managed to block the pathway of acetic acid into the brain, and found that the mice did not show a preference for alcohol even if they drank alcohol regularly. This is a real hammer on the fact that alcohol changes the brain through acetic acid to form an alcohol addiction. Molecular-level studies have found that too much acetic acid disrupts brain gene expression and alters brain histones, making drinkers addicted to alcohol.
People who are addicted to alcohol can't eat or sleep without drinking two cups a day. After drinking alcohol, the alcohol is quickly absorbed by the digestive tract and immediately reaches the liver. Studies have shown that the intake of 40g of alcohol per day will lead to alcoholic fatty liver, and then continue to drink is alcoholic hepatitis, alcoholic cirrhosis, and finally liver cancer. In the liver, the liver secretes two types of enzymes, one called ethanol dehydrogenase, and the other is acetaldehyde dehydrogenase, which is first converted to acetaldehyde by ethanol dehydrogenase. Acetaldehyde is not as toxic as formaldehyde, and it can also damage DNA and cause cancer. In addition, it will also stimulate the sympathetic nervous system, dilate blood vessels, interfere with fat metabolism and so on. The toxic effects of acetaldehyde are systemic, and the most damaged is the liver as a detoxification organ. While the liver is injured by acetaldehyde, it must silently continue the detoxification work, and under the action of acetaldehyde dehydrogenase, acetaldehyde is further converted to acetic acid. Vinegar also contains acetic acid, but the concentration is not high, generally at 3 to 5%, and the number of ordinary people eating vinegar is very limited, there are reports that Shanxi people drink vinegar just like drinking water, the same is a vinegar addiction. Therefore, drinking too much of the things containing acetic acid will be addictive.
Second, why do I blush when I drink?
Southerners will blush more when they drink, while most northerners are white-faced, which means that most southerners lack the gene of "acetaldehyde dehydrogenase".
Some people blush as soon as they drink alcohol, and after the wine is absorbed by the stomach and intestines, it is converted into acetaldehyde under the action of ethanol dehydrogenase in the liver. Due to the lack of active acetaldehyde dehydrogenase in the body, the alcohol entering the human body cannot be smoothly metabolized, but will continue to accumulate in the body. Then acetaldehyde begins to act on our central nervous system and blood. Acetaldehyde has the function of dilating capillaries, and the expansion of capillaries in the face is the cause of blushing. In addition, it is also possible that after drinking alcohol, the heartbeat will be accelerated, blood pressure will rise, the sympathetic nervous system will be overexcited, and it will also lead to abnormal congestion and expansion of capillaries, which will aggravate the blush after drinking.
This part of the friends do not believe that drinking can be exercised, drink more than a few times can naturally drink this statement. The lack of active "acetaldehyde dehydrogenase" is fundamentally a genetic problem and does not change with the increase of alcohol consumption. If you lack this enzyme itself, but still drink a lot of alcohol, liver and kidney damage will be inevitable, but this kind of person generally drinks less, others see the blush will also be less persuaded to drink, so there are fewer problems.
There is also a kind of people liver secretion of the two types of enzymes are missing, this kind of people drink will not blush, this kind of person relies on body fluids to dilute alcohol, the larger the size of the more they can drink, the alcohol concentration to exceed 0.1% they will be comatose, such people often do not know their bottom line, the face is more and more white, in the high excitement of drinking excessive, until drunk, and even the possibility of alcohol poisoning. The alcohol in their bodies is piled up due to the lack of highly active enzyme treatment, resulting in alcoholic liver damage, and those who drink alcohol only occur in such people, so people with white faces may not be able to drink more, and they must have a clear understanding of their own alcohol consumption.
Finally, there are two types of enzymes, and both have high activity, that is, people who drink very strongly, alcohol is agile into acetic acid into the metabolic cycle and fever, so a lot of fever and sweating, this kind of person ten people who drink alcohol can not drink, your alcohol is piled up in the body, others sweat to excrete alcohol, this is a person who is born to drink, some people often say that women drink more than men, this just means that women also have genes that can naturally drink, and whether they are men or women have nothing to do with it.
Not only genes can inhibit the activity of acetaldehyde dehydrogenase, some drugs, such as cephalosporin can also inhibit acetaldehyde dehydrogenase activity, causing excessive acetaldehyde content in the body and blushing, poisoning, the human body is very prone to chest tightness and shortness of breath and headache, nausea and other symptoms, and can even be fatal when severe. While you remember "cephalosporin with wine, say go away", I hope you can also remember "drinking and taking medicine, the consequences are difficult", in the case of illness and medicine, it is strictly forbidden to drink alcohol.
Third, why does drinking go up?
The brewing process of wine is actually a complete chemical reaction process, in the process of ethanol generation, while inevitably generating methanol, propanol and pentanol and other high-grade alcohols, the industry will be called fusels, of which methanol is the most harmful to the human body, but also the source of headaches.
In the middle, isobutanol and isoamyl alcohol are the most special, and the blood-brain barrier in the brain can hinder many harmful substances from entering the brain. But oxygen, carbon dioxide, sugars, ethanol can come and go freely. For molecules such as isobutanol and isoamyl alcohol, they can also enter the brain with the blood because of the enlargement of their side chain oleophilic groups. But it is more difficult to go in and come out, and because the molecules are relatively large, the metabolic rate is slower than ethanol. Therefore, once and again, wine with more isobutanol and isoamyl alcohol content is easy to be trapped in the brain, causing the head. The figure below is an excerpt from the book "Q&A on New Liquor Production and Hooking Techniques".
From the table, we can clearly see that the content of isobutanol and isoamyl alcohol in rice-flavored liquor (rice wine) is the highest, which is 2-3 times that of other aromatic liquors. It can be seen from this that drinking rice wine is strong and easy to get on the head is very reasonable! Many people like to use rice to ferment rice wine, there is a lot of protein in rice, and there will be a lot of high-grade alcohols in the fermentation process. At the same time, because the process is relatively simple and lacks rectification, the distillation process is difficult to remove higher alcohols. Therefore, drinking raw pulp wine without distillation directly is more likely to cause dizziness. Not only rice wine, but now many people like to drink medicinal wine, the protein content is higher, the brewed wine isobutanol, isoamyl alcohol content is also higher! Because the drinking is too strong, people take it for granted that medicinal liquor is more healthy. As everyone knows, this is just too many fusels, easy to get on!
Fourth, why is it fun to drink?
Some people feel happy after drinking alcohol, and the effect of happiness is triggered by the neurotransmitter dopamine. Ethanol contains a substance that activates the dopamine D2 receptor located in the central region of the brain's reward. Dopamine binds to receptors to exert excitatory effects, and some substances, although not dopamine, can also bind to receptors, making people excited. Studies have found that if the light is too short, life pressure is high, or life feelings are frustrated, people's secretion of aminobutyric acid is reduced, they will feel anxiety, and even depression.
For the human body, aminobutyric acid is a substance with a certain therapeutic effect. First of all, it is a very important inhibitory neurotransmitter in the human central nervous system, and its effect on the human body is mainly to calm the mind and strengthen the brain. Ethanol can assume a role similar to GBA, so that the gated channel can be opened, so people will say goodbye to anxiety and become happy after drinking. Psychotropic drugs now on the market, such as benzodiazepines, also use the same principle to make people happy and avoid anxiety. Because ethanol can make people forget about worries, those whose lives are frustrated and lonely at heart can also become alcoholics.
Although drinking alcohol will make people happy, but after drinking too much energy is difficult to concentrate, even nonsense, direct fragmentation, the next day but can not remember what happened after drunkenness, the root of the fragmentation is that ethanol first inhibits the NMDA receptor in the hippocampus region, which is involved in human learning and long-term memory. In addition, ethanol can also activate other receptors, make some steroids, and continue to inhibit memory formation. After getting drunk, once you fall asleep, you will have no awareness of the outside world, who picked it up, and you don't know what you did, so if you want to get drunk, you must first pay attention to whether it is a safe environment!
Friends who drink alcohol may have experience, although they are drunk after drinking, but the sleep time is particularly short, and they get up very early. Alcohol can alter the concentration of various neurotransmitters, promote aminobutyric acid, and inhibit acetylcholine, which have an effect on different stages of sleep and promote deep sleep. This is also the reason why many people like to drink alcohol and get a good night's sleep.
5. Can drinking alcohol be healthy?
To understand what effect drinking alcohol has on the human body, we must first understand the composition of wine, and first of all, we must know what is wine? According to the current international definition, wine is a drink that contains 0.5% to 96% ethanol. Since 10,000 BC, humans have been using grain and fruit to make wine. Winemaking is divided into solid state method and liquid method. The solid-state method is to add bacterial fungi to brew wine in the case of grain or solid. The liquid method is to add water and cook it with a pot of broth.
The solid-state method wastes 40% of the grain compared to the liquid method because the grain and colonies cannot be fully contacted. In the past, the production technology was backward, the liquid method was prone to abnormal fermentation, and the by-products affected the flavor, so the wine produced by the solid state method was relatively high-end. Now, because of brewing, in addition to the improvement of miscellaneous technology, in addition to the high-end and expensive solid-state method, there is not much benefit to selling the feelings of ancient french wine. However, now a famous winery still continues the ancient law of 600 years ago, only using young women to step on the song, solid wine, they think that the beauty will be more fragrant.
Solid, liquid, and essentially are all conversions from glucose to ethanol. First, glucose is first fermented in 10 steps to generate pyruvate. In the human body, if aerobic breathing is taken, pyruvate is eventually converted into carbon dioxide. However, if there is not enough oxygen, such as after strenuous exercise, pyruvate will be converted to lactic acid, which is why muscle soreness occurs after exercise. Lactic acid bacteria are mixed in during the winemaking process, so the winemaking product will have lactic acid. For yeasts without anaerobic respiration, they use pyruvate carboxylase to convert pyruvate to acetaldehyde, which is then converted to ethanol under the action of dehydrogenase.
In addition to ethanol, yeast also converts acetaldehyde into acetic acid, which is our common vinegar.
Tradition believes that liquor has the function of invigorating blood circulation, helping medicine, enhancing appetite, eliminating fatigue, cultivating sentiments, making people brisk and refreshing. Liquor contains very small amounts of sodium, copper, zinc, almost no vitamins and calcium, phosphorus, iron, etc., and contains only water and ethanol. After the alcohol in the wine is absorbed by the human body, although it can also be oxidized for heating, the body heat felt by drinking liquor is not the result of alcohol heating, but under the stimulation of alcohol, it is caused by the expansion of the body's microvessels and a large amount of heat dissipation on the surface of the body, and in fact, the glucose in the body is consumed.
Many people think that liquor has no health function, and the health wine with precious medicinal materials has it, that is because the high alcohol produced by impurities is not related to health care. In 2018, The Lancet magazine published a study that lasted for 26 years: that is, a drop of wine is the most healthy! How much alcohol you drink increases your risk of getting cancer. At the same time, alcohol and metabolic acetaldehyde are a class of carcinogens, and not drinking any wine can increase life expectancy! So, please don't believe any remarks about drinking health, not drinking is the most healthy!
6. How to distinguish the aromas of various liquors?
The aroma of liquor and the taste of spicy liquor are very fragrant, in our country, often divided into strong flavor type, clear flavor type, rice flavor type, sauce flavor type four kinds, online description of various types of wine aroma:
Sauce-flavored wine: the sauce is prominent, elegant and delicate, the wine is mellow and the aftertaste is long.
Aromatic wine: rich aroma, sweet and sweet, harmonious aroma, long tail fragrance.
Fragrant wine: pure fragrance, harmonious taste, mellow and soft, refreshing aftertaste.
Rice-flavored wine: honey fragrance is elegant, the entrance is soft, the mouth is refreshing, and the aftertaste is pleasant.
From the text, it is really difficult to distinguish, the aroma in liquor is actually ethyl acetate, ethyl butyrate, ethyl caproate, ethyl lactate, and a mixture of various alcohols, acids, and aldehydes. However, the big head of the fragrance is still ester! The figure below is an excerpt from the book "Q&A on New Liquor Production and Hooking Techniques".
From this we can scientifically know the difference between the four fragrance types, the strong fragrance type is because it contains a large amount of ethyl caproate, ethyl lactate, and ethyl acetate has a pineapple-like fruity aroma, while ethyl lactate has a slightly fatty aroma. The fragrance type is because the content of ethyl acetate is very high, ethyl butyrate, and ethyl caproate are very low, so it is only the apple flavor of ethyl metaacetate. The content of rice aromatic esters is not high, and the aroma is average.
Sauce flavor type is more interesting, the four ester content are general, sauce flavor type liquor production process, production needs high temperature koji, and the rest of the flavor type liquor does not use high temperature, glucose and protein at high temperature occurs Maillard reaction, the reaction is very simple! In the first step, acetyl-CoA is first fermented to form a ethyl marriage. Then the amino group is transferred, and then the two molecules undergo an amino acid synthesis reaction to form tetramethylpyrazine, as well as various heterocyclic compounds. The following figure is still the data I extracted from the book "New Liquor Production and Hooking Technology Q&A".
The tetramethylpyrazine content of sauce-flavored liquor is at least 100,000 times higher than that of other flavored liquors. The reason for the aroma of the sauce can also be easily derived, that is, the heterocyclic compounds such as pyrazine produced by the melad reaction of the usual baking and roasting meat.
Since you know why it is fragrant, why does some liquor have a mellow taste? "New liquor production and hooking technology Q&A" this book reveals that butylene glycol, butanedione content of high wine taste will be mellow, that is, the intermolecular hydrogen bond affects the rheology, ethanol only has a hydroxyl group, so the formation of an intermolecular hydrogen bond. Butanediol, on the other hand, can form hydrogen bonds between two molecules. These molecules can be regarded as weak crosslinkers, which is equivalent to increasing the viscosity of the solution, affecting rheological properties and modulus. Therefore, the taste is mellow in essence is a physical property, liquor is particularly spicy to drink, the higher the degree is more spicy, the most important reason for the spiciness of liquor is because of aldehydes and ketones, which are carbonyl compounds. Liquor contains acetaldehyde, which reacts with proteins and stimulates pain receptors on the tongue, so it makes us feel spicy. But the acetaldehyde in liquor is not the spicyest, and glucose is not only converted to ethanol, but also to glycerol during fermentation.
Glycerol also produces a portion of acrolein during fermentation, which is incredibly spicy and a highly toxic carcinogen. However, the boiling point of acroleal is only 53 degrees, which is easy to volatilize, so heating the wine, or storing it for a while to wait for the volatilization of the aldehyde can improve the taste and reduce the spiciness of the liquor.
Seventh, why can't you drink fake wine.
Many people already know that fake wine is industrial alcohol mixed with water, because it contains methanol, and people become blind or die after drinking it. So methanol and ethanol are one word apart, why is methanol so toxic? Like ethanol, methanol is first metabolized to formaldehyde, which is then metabolized to formic acid. Although methanol is not toxic, formaldehyde and formic acid are highly toxic. People are particularly familiar with formaldehyde, just renovated house if the smell is too big to live in, children are particularly prone to leukemia. The molecule formaldehyde is much more reactive than acetaldehyde, and first forms the same protein as The Schiff base. And this is the same as the red, green and blue - between light and chemistry of the article of retinal competition, rhodopsin can not be formed, so people's vision will be greatly affected, heavy blindness.
In addition, the formed Schiff base can continue to react with DNA or proteins to produce crosslinking products. In cells, DNA comes into close contact with histone proteins and assembles into chromosomes like cotton wrapped around it. When treated with formaldehyde, DNA is crosslinked with histone and cannot be separated, so DNA cannot be copied normally, which causes cancer. The molecule formic acid is also highly toxic, and it can bind to cytochrome c-oxidase to transmit the electrons of aerobic respiration to produce carbon dioxide. This is very fatal. On the one hand, the electrons of aerobic respiration are generally finally transferred to oxygen by oxidative phosphorylation, which combines with hydrogen ions to form water.
Formic acid is equivalent to breaking this step, hydrogen ions accumulate more and more in the cell, and eventually the cell dies of direct acidosis. And acetic acid because it is not active enough, it can not hinder the electronic transmission of cytochrome c oxidase, so there is no problem with jealousy, many people like to make wine at home fruits, of course, thinking that the fruit is non-toxic, the wine brewed is certainly non-toxic. But the scary truth is that it's easy to brew methanol in fruit wine. That's because there is a lot of pectin in the fruit, hydrolases can easily convert the pectin into methanol. Seeing this, friends who love to make fruit wine at home may be afraid, afraid that formaldehyde formic acid will harm themselves, and they will no longer dare to drink their own wine. In fact, there is no need to be afraid, in fact, in the human body, serine will also be decomposed into glycine and formaldehyde.
This spontaneously produced formaldehyde is involved in the synthesis of purines in the body, which are an important component of DNA. Therefore, our blood contains formaldehyde, and the concentration is generally 0.2 - 0.4 mM. But this concentration can not be too high, if high to 0.5 mM is easy to crosslink the protein's lysine, induce the famous amyloid aggregation, let people get Alzheimer's disease. Therefore, home-brewed fruit wine, taste it, do not drink more.
8. Why is Moutai wine so expensive?
Although alcohol, like cigarettes, is scientifically considered harmful to the human body, it is difficult to ban it sociologically, and it is very beneficial to the national finances in economics. State finances, like individuals, include open source and throttling. In China, the gross profit margin of liquor is very high (drugs are like this), generally at 80%.
The gross profit margin of Moutai is even more exaggerated, reaching 91%, that is, the production cost of a bottle of nearly 1,000 yuan is definitely not more than 90 pieces. Liquor, like tobacco, brings huge taxes to the country. The Guangmaotai family paid 25.6 billion yuan in taxes in 2017.
We know that Guizhou Moutai, which has occupied the first place in the market value of China's stock market for many years, is one of the world's three major distilled liquors with Scotch whisky and French Cognac, with the continuous growth of China's GDP, the people are getting richer and richer, and the young new consumer force is rapidly rising and joining the liquor consumption. They have more knowledge of alcohol, know how to taste wine, but also very rational and shrewd, out of consideration for their own health, of course, they have to drink less, and they have to drink alcohol and choose to drink good wine.
The price of Moutai has been high, in addition to the fact that the wine is good and the output is small, it is also inseparable from the financial attributes of capital speculation, many people are not buying for the sake of drinking Moutai, but more for investment, hospitality, and gifts.
Although many distilleries are learning the brewing process of sauce-flavored liquor, none of them can currently compete with the sauce-flavored liquor in Maotai Town. On the Internet, there are even remarks that "outside the 7.5 kilometers of Moutai Town, Moutai wine cannot be brewed at all". Therefore, there is such a phenomenon, thanks to the unique terrain and soil of Moutai Town, the Chishui River is the best water source for winemaking, the unique microclimate environment, and the non-replicable microbial flora, which is the 5 major advantages of winemaking.
Moutai Town is known as "China's first wine town", within less than 8 kilometers, large and small wineries, dotted with dots. The town is full of liquor shops, but there are very few wineries that can actually make good wine.
Fundamentally speaking, this is because although there are many wineries in Moutai Town, there are not many distilleries that really adhere to the process and can withstand the heart and brew seriously. As we have already talked about the brewing process of Moutai Town sauce-flavored liquor, it takes one year to make wine alone, two feedings, nine times cooking, eight fermentations, seven times to take the wine, and then it is necessary to carefully blend and seal the altar cellar.
Winemaking requires patience, but also needs perseverance, without these two points, there is no good wine. Many of the surrounding heritage workshops have been acquired by Moutai, such as the predecessor of the current Jinzhu Distillery, Qingcai Yaofang, so many places have the same origin as Moutai wine, the same is the same as the process of the sect, the same is the source of the water source.
However, the reality is that when the Sauce-flavored Liquor of Moutai Town, represented by "Moutai Town", is sought after by domestic consumers, as long as it is crowned with the sauce-flavored liquor produced by "Moutai Town", the value will immediately double. This has allowed many local bad distilleries and merchants to take advantage of loopholes, under the guise of Moutai Town's production, specializing in alcohol blending, not bothering to brew wine at all, and will only go around swindling and cheating. Many dealers and customers in the field, without knowing it, are often deceived.
Therefore, the so-called sauce-flavored liquor that many people drink is not a pure brewed liquor produced in Moutai Town at all, but is blended with alcohol. There is a saying on the wine table, "Moutai brings a town, and the purchase needs to be cautious", which is a portrayal of this kind of swindling behavior.
Looking at the whole country, all kinds of OEM "Moutai Town" liquors make consumers unable to distinguish, and also make those wineries that seriously brew wine suffer losses. After all, the wine is drunk, and whether it is good or not is the key. Although there are many wineries in Moutai Town, most of them are crazy to collect "IQ tax" mixed liquor. Those wineries that are really serious about winemaking are rare.
However, we firmly believe that these wineries that have gone crooked and evil ways cannot last long. 只有那些认真酿酒的好酒厂，才能在历史的长河中屹立不倒，希望像金樽酒厂这样“恪守传统”的白酒企业，在百花齐放的中国市场上可以长久地占有一席之地。
Source: Li Songsong, "The Most Scientific Talk about Wine on the Whole Network - Between Drinking and Chemistry"
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