In recent days, a publication from the Canadian Center on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) dealing with the health effects of alcohol has caused a lot of1. Between those who accuse science of being alarmist and killjoy, others who question the transparency of the Éduc’Alcool organization and a third fringe who criticize the commercial methods of the SAQ, the positions seem irreconcilable.
I reassure you right away. I don’t want to get involved in this controversy. Instead, I offer you a little return to a page in the evolutionary history of our species to remind you that it is in the nature of Sapiens to seek to disturb its consciousness. No matter how hard we try to plead restriction in this matter, humans have always sought this feeling. Alcohol, cannabis products, opium poppy, coca, synthetic drugs and the many psychoactive alkaloids present in or extracted from mushrooms still generously find takers on the planet. The human is the animal that loves to scramble its conscience or open the door that protects this very secret garden.
In 2004, the American biologist Robert Dudley put forward the hypothesis of “drunken monkeys”. A theory that our species has a genetic predisposition that drives it towards alcohol. Very early in evolution, our ancestors looked for the effects of alcohol on their mood. Long before the fermentation of grapes and cereal starch, gorging on fruit at the start of putrefaction could give them a form of intoxication. Long before the invention of beverages, this way of drinking must have been common among hunter-gatherers.
It is also at the center of the work of the American geneticist from the University of Santa Fe Matthew Carrigan, whose contribution on the subject is gigantic. The latter discovered in 2017 that 10 million years ago, a mutation that occurred in an ancestor that we share with the great apes gave us the ability to metabolize alcohol 40 times faster. This degradation of ethanol in our body is ensured by an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH4). Prior to this mutation, the version of this enzyme present in our evolutionary line was less efficient.
In other words, if they were given ethanol, the animals carrying this old form of enzyme would have been drunk more quickly and durably. This mutation reported by Matthew Carrigan would therefore result in a better adaptation to alcoholic products. The author says that this change occurred during a climatic episode, a drought which would have pushed the primates to descend from the heights and find something to eat on the ground. As these arboreal species began to taste alcoholic fruits, this life-saving adaptive mutation quickly spread. In question, after an alcoholic episode, it gave them the possibility of quickly returning to this state of alert essential to survival. When you’re active in the heights of tall trees, being intoxicated can lead to a fatal fall. And when on the ground, a lack of vigilance increases vulnerability to predators.
Beyond safety, the author also suggests, the ingestion of alcohol allowed these animals to slow down their metabolism and promote the storage of fat reserves during this period of food insecurity. This new biological tool allowing a better tolerance of alcohol was therefore doubly beneficial.
Armed with this enzyme, our ancestors will however have to wait for a curious person to discover that honey, courtesy of plants to bees, could be transformed into alcohol thanks to the action of yeasts present in all environments. Just dilute it to 70% and let those invisible workers do the rest of the work. Sedentarization, the invention of vases and containers, but above all the domestication of cereals and vines will complete our march towards the great drinking parties. Patrick McGovern, a professor of biomolecular archeology at the University of Pennsylvania and a leading expert on the history of ancient beverages, says it was the desire to get boozy from beer that largely drove humans to throw away their devoted to cereals which produce very insignificant seeds. From the moment they discovered that the ferments present in the environment could transform them into bread and beer, our distant ancestors became fanatical disciples of these tiny seeds.
In my part of the country, brewing millet or sorghum beer is an old tradition that is now dying. Everywhere in the Sahel, we knew this practice. Thus, if you are offered a glass of dolo in Burkina Fasso, it will not be a glass containing water. It’s much better: dolo is a beer made from millet or red sorghum. A dolotière is a dolo seller, and as she rarely has a fridge in her countryside, she will pass on some lukewarm dolo in a calabash. It is then customary to pour a few drops of the dolo on the ground before taking a sip. It’s a way of toasting with the ancestors. An advice. Go easy on the dolo, otherwise coconut bobo and big sleep!
The moral of my story is this: Like the religious and social prohibition of old, these calls for abstinence that come from science will not stop people from drinking. Happiness is multifactorial and the health of the body is inseparable from that of the mind. For many people, the glass of wine is a source of relaxation. It captures the scampering hamster in the brain and puts it in a cage for a little getaway with friends and family.
That said, far be it from me to exonerate or trivialize the dark side of alcohol. For those who seek balance, wisdom, Paracelsus, this Swiss doctor, alchemist and philosopher who caused a sensation at the beginning of the 16e century, is to be considered. It is to Paracelsus that we owe the still very current quote: “Everything is poison, nothing is poison, it is the dose that makes the difference. »