Methanol, also known as wood alcohol, is made into formaldehyde inside cells of 20 human tissues by ADH1 enzyme.
Methanol is thus highly toxic in humans for low daily doses.
WC Monte gives details at WhileScienceSleeps.
Humans only are vulnerable, as they slowly get Alzheimer's, MS, heart disease, cancers, birth defects, arthritis, and diabetes.
Formaldehyde toxicity via methanol, in humans only, comes from aspartame, wood peat and cigarette smoke, fresh tomatoes, and unfresh fruits juices and vegetables in cans jars and plastics.
From: dietary methanol and autism, Ralph G. Walton, Woodrow C. Monte, in press, Medical Hypotheses (now peer reviewed), free full rich text, 38 references: Rich Murray 2015.07.06
Methanol is the plausible candidate toxin that initiates MS and many other chronic human ailments.
It circulates in the human bloodstream with half-life 3 hours, and so every minute readily enters every cell in the adult and fetus, to be promptly formed into highly reactive hydrated formaldehyde that is not under proper biochemical control, as humans alone of all creatures lack a functional cellular-defense system.
The responsible enzyme is ADH1, which is at high levels in 20 specific human tissues, notably the cells of the inner walls of blood vessels in the brain and retina, and even the rod and cone cells.
In the brain, formaldehyde is formed inside the cells on the brain-tissue side of the blood vessels at the bottom of the brain.
Highly reactive formaldehyde hydrate (always formed as the dominant molecular configuration when formaldehyde dissolves in water) has two resonating -OH groups on either side of its single carbon atom, both slightly acidic, so each easily bonds to basic proteins in such a way as to potentially elicit unwanted macrophage attention and activation.
This same slightly acidic hydrate of formaldehyde can act on DNA and RNA and certain basic proteins in the cytosol to not only attach to but to cross link and thus inactivate them.
This is most likely how formaldehyde, formed inside the blood-brain barrier from methanol, causes deactivation of the mitochondrial activity of the eye and other important tissues adjacent to brain blood vessels.
Formaldehyde-labeled molecules powerfully attract microglia, monocytes, and macrophages, as the immune system reacts and overreacts.
Myriad scattered spots of inflammation evolve, leading to the complex results that mystify many investigators.
All they need to know is that the initial insult is methanol, and then modern methods can quickly prove this clearly.
In addition, it is essential to appreciate that ethanol is a powerful antidote, as it preempts the ADH1 enzyme, preventing the forming of up to 16 times higher molar concentrations of methanol from being formed into formaldehyde.
This is why for many modern chronic diseases, those who drink just one ethanol drink daily have half the harm as those who never drink.
Many people are also protected by ethanol, the potent antidote, in their blood from fermentation by bacteria in the GI tract.
Methanol (wood alcohol) is 11% of aspartame -- every can of drink gives 22 mg free methanol into the GI tract.
Since fall, 2007 Prof. Woodrow C. Monte, Arizona State University, Food Science and Nutrition, retired 2004, has given a free online bibliography of 782 mostly full-text medical-research references:
as are the simple dietary changes that you must follow because your life may depend on it:
Men have several times more ADH1 in their GI tract than women, so less methanol gets into the blood to attack other tissues, so now four times as many women get multiple sclerosis as men.
"While Science Sleeps" textbook, 2012 January:
"Methanol travels easily to breast tissue and has been found in human milk. 219
The cells that produce milk within the breast, cells prone to develop the most common of breast cancers, adenocarcinoma 358, contain high levels of ADH1 enzyme, 358 allowing methanol's conversion to formaldehyde [ inside the cells as free floating acidic hydrated formaldehyde, highly reactive on both sides of molecule ].
Mammary epithelial cells have no way to protect themselves from formaldehyde 216 -- no means to render it harmless.
They, unlike other breast tissue, contain no aldehyde dehydrogenase enzyme (ADH 3) that could transform formaldehyde into the non-carcinogenic formic acid. 216
Of particular interest are recent findings implicating ADH as playing a pivotal role in the formation of breast cancer, documenting a greater incidence of the disease in women with higher levels of ADH1 activity in their breasts. 357"
Formaldehyde from methanol specifically impairs two enzymes in mitochondria that process ATP, shutting down aerobic energy metabolism -- causes fatigue, weakness, and also blindness in the retina.
methanol toxicity, not by formate, but by formaldehyde made inside human cells by ADH1 enzyme -- brief by Woodrow C. Monte, with lengthy references: Rich Murray 2013.05.24
Many of my reviews of recent research are linked at:
Ajinomoto is terrified of you, if you go right ahead and check out WC Monte at WhileScienceSleeps site for free 782 full text references re chronic methanol formaldehyde toxicity: Rich Murray 2015.07.15
"As a matter of course, every soul citizen of Earth has a priority to quickly find and positively share evidence for healthy and safe food, drink, environment, and society."
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Rich Murray,
MA Boston University Graduate School 1967 psychology,
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