| I am not a biomedical unit, (but I have played one at work).
The mechanism to my limited understating is alcohol was invented by yeast to
slightly poison their food so the bacteria present could not out compete them. It's fundamental creation in nature is a deliberate toxin. At least one of the chemicals alcohol breaks down into in mammals is known to cause double strand DNA breaks. Most often "no problem" we have builtin genetic resources to repair those breaks.
(unless you have something like Fanconi Anemia). The reason we have a builtin mechanism to repair this sort of damage is it happens anyway at a lower rate without alcohol. If the rate of breakage is greater than the ability to repair then stuff stays broken. Basically the more lottery tickets you buy the more likely you are to win
but not buying them doesn't mean you wont be gifted some. It is a strange thing to reconcile, intellectually I have first hand data there is no safe dosage, but genetically I'm from a line of alcoholics and socially (in the before times) it provides a very comfortable community building fabric. I have become comfortable with a single drink on rare occasion. |