Regina Barber

As a staff writer for The Atlantic, Katie wrote an article on the topic.

She mentions that mostly East Asian people have this reaction, hence the name.

And aldehydes in the body don't just come from alcohol.

They also build up naturally as part of your metabolism.

So why would evolution make it so that some people, a pretty sizable amount, can't properly break down aldehydes?

Today on the show, Katie shares how this biological process goes haywire and one theory as to why it might have been a powerful tool for some of our ancestors to survive disease.

I'm Regina Barber, and you're listening to ShoreWave from NPR.

Okay, Katie, so Asian glow affects half a billion people, including you and me, and it's because of a genetic mutation we both have, right?

What are aldehydes?

Yeah.

And so everyone has two copies of a gene, right?

Like one from each parent.

We just talked about that.

What would happen if you had two copies of this genetic mutation and you're not processing this alcohol at all?

But then when you're drinking, it's like – Right, right, right.

And so like how does the body get rid of these aldehydes if there is a buildup?

And in your article, you write that by one line of evolutionary logic, I and other sufferers of so-called alcohol flush shouldn't exist.

What's your reasoning there?

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's swing positive, like your article does.

So recently an NYU microbiologist— —Haren Darwin.