A lot of that is still controversial or at least we should say is ongoing in terms of the research . But nonetheless , when you ingest ethanol , N ad and related biochemical pathways are involved in converting that ethanol into something called acetyl aldehyde . It's broken down into acetyl aldehyde .
Acetate is actually something that your body can use as fuel . And that process of going from ethanol to acetyl aldehyde to acetate does involve the production of a toxic molecule . Right again , acetyl aldehyde is really toxic .
Goes into the stomach . The liver immediately starts this conversion that we talked about before of ethanol to acetyl aldehyde , to acetate and some amount of acetyl aldehyde and acetate are making it into the brain , it crosses the blood brain barrier . Again , the brain has this fence around it that we call the blood brain barrier or the BBB .
It's broken down into acetyl aldehyde . And if you thought ethanol was bad acetyl aldehyde is particularly bad acetyl aldehyde is poison , it will kill cells , it damages and kills cells and it is indiscriminate as to which cells it damages and kills . Now , that's a problem obviously , and the body deals with that problem by using another component of the N ad biochemical pathway to convert ace aldehyde into something called acetate .
What does that mean for you ? What that means is that if your body can't do this conversion of ethanol to acetyl aldehyde to acetate fast enough . Well , acetyl aldehyde will build up in your body and cause more damage .
