Alcohol intolerance. Is alcohol dehy... - Pernicious Anaemi...

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Alcohol intolerance. Is alcohol dehydrogenase causing our continued issues even after b12 injections?

KimberinUS profile image
6 Replies

I posted previously in regards to having issues with being able to drink any amount of alcohol without feeling like I got run over by a truck. Several others posted they also have this issue.

I've been doing some research and alcohol dehydrogenase seems to pop up in several of the articles.

pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publicat...

So with further research i started taking NAC because appearently cysteine is the rate limiting portion of the formation of glutathione which helps process the toxic by product of alcohol, acetaldehyde.

medium.com/@researchangover...

articles.mercola.com/sites/...

I took jarrows 600 mg of nac, sustained release 3X daily for 10 days before having a drink and low and behold, i was fine.

After further research i found that h pylori, which i had, has an alcohol dehydrogenase relation.

sciencedirect.com/science/a...

So ok, maybe h pylori is why some people with a b12 deficiency have issues with alcohol while others dont.

Further research into my vision issues/brain fog brought up links between alcohol dehydrogenase and retinol (viamin A).

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/9...

I started taking vitamin A 2X daily (retinol, not beta carotene kind), and astaxanthin 12 mg both 2X daily(recommended by vitamin shop owner for night blindness issues) and low and behold my vision/blurriness/dizzyness/double vision was better in 5 days. (Note: i thought the vitamin A was 10k iu, so i took 2 daily. later, i realized the vitamin A was 25k iu so at 2X daily that was alot and i dont recommend that much so i scaled back to once a day.)

For whatever reason my energy improved greatly when taking 2X daily and reduced some, not all the way back to prior level with 1X daily. I did not expect that so again i looked it up. This says retinol effects the mitochondria production of ATP (energy).

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/1...

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

I believe gambit or fbirder has a background in scientific research. I am wondering if alcohol dehydrogenase or its toxic by product, acetaldehyde, could be the link for lingering symptoms after having b12 injections, for some of us.

Has anyone else taken these suppliments and found they help?

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KimberinUS
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Yiayia74 profile image
Yiayia74

Alcohol could be an issue with me, I use to drink 2glasses of wine a night! I stopped that but hope this has not ruined my entire system.

Gambit62 profile image
Gambit62Administrator

apologies - the biochemistry is well beyond what I can follow but I think the link could be down to affects on the Krebs Cycle - which is the process that runs in cells allowing them to release energy - normally this is by converting ATP to ADP but if things go wrong then other mechanisms can come into play ... the problem is that there are a lot of chemicals involved in the Krebs Cycle and a lot of thingsthat can go wrong ... and a lot of things where genetics and particular variants on genes can affect how efficiently particular bits of the process run.

MoKayD profile image
MoKayD

I haven't been able to drink wine for years now. One glass and my face turns red and my nose starts to itch. I look crazy. I sip tea during book group meeting now. I never thought it could be a side effect from low B12. Thank you. This sounds like something I need to research. I miss wine.

KimberinUS profile image
KimberinUS in reply toMoKayD

Im not really thinking it it from low b12. I have had 27 1000mcg injections of cyano b12 during the last 9 months.

Im wondering if alcohol intolerance for those of us that have injections is due to lack of ability to process the toxic by produce of alcohol, acetaldehyde, due to having h pylori.

You could try taking the NAC and see if after some time of tajing it you can drink a half glass of wine.

I would be intetested in knowing if it helps others.

MoKayD profile image
MoKayD in reply toKimberinUS

I read an article which talked about using antihistamines to stop alcohol flush. It said that people whose faces turn red and get heated after drinking alcohol lack activity by an enzyme named aldehyde dehydrogenase 2. People who have an altered form of this gene lack to ability to breakdown alcohol into harmless water like most humans. Somehow antihistamines prevent their body from reacting to alcohol. Even though their faces didn't turn read, the alcohol is still toxic to their bodies and they shouldn't drink.

I never drank much alcohol but about 12 years ago ( long before B12 def symptoms) found even a small amount made me ill for days. I also have a similar problem with chocolate, coffee and also cannot tolerate curry, pineapple, ginger, grapefruit. One possible explanation is thought to be I lack an enzyme/ enzymes so part of these things is not broken down and stays in my bloodstream.

No idea how this relates to B12 def or the Fibromylagia I also have--- if indeed they do. The science is beyond my brain fog today but I'll save your post to read later. Thanks for taking the time to post and I'll look into the vitamins / supplements you use.

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