Now we know why men and women think differently and see differently, but Dawn, an audience member, wants to know why men have higher alcohol tolerances than women. "My husband and I enjoy wine," she says. "I was just wondering why it affects me after I drink one glass, and he can drink five or six and he doesn't feel it."
Though the average woman is smaller than the average man, Dr. Oz says size doesn't matter. "Men have an extra chemical, an enzyme in their stomach that actually digests alcohol," he says. "So when a guy drinks a bottle of beer, and you drink a bottle of beer, all your alcohol goes into your bloodstream, but only half of the alcohol goes into the male bloodstream."
If you are an Asian or Native American woman, you are at an even greater disadvantage. "Asians lack the enzyme in their liver to be able to break down alcohol," Dr. Oz says. "If you lack that system … then you don't detoxify alcohol as well."
Dr. Oz says the explanation for this missing enzyme is biological. "It might be because in Asian cultures, instead of fermenting their drinkables—like making beer—they would boil the water to make tea," he says. "That meant they didn't have to have a system in their liver to get rid of the alcohol. They could just drink their water."
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