rs671(G;G)

Alcohol Flush: Normal, doesn't flush. Normal hangovers. Normal risk of Alcoholism. Normal risk of Esophageal Cancer. Disulfiram is effective for alcoholism.

Magnitude
2.0Worth knowing
Repute
Good
Frequency
83%Average of 7 populations
On SNPedia
rs671(G;G)
Gene
ALDH2

Frequency

Share of people with G;G in each HapMap population.

  • European ancestry (Utah)100%
  • Yoruba (Nigeria)100%
  • Luhya (Kenya)99%
  • Mexican ancestry (Los Angeles)97%
  • Han Chinese (Beijing)71%
  • Japanese (Tokyo)60%
  • Chinese (Denver)54%

Other genotypes of rs671

  1. A;AMost notableBadAsian Flusher; increased risk of esophageal cancer; East Asian ancestry; Disulfiram not effective for alcoholism.Very important · 4.02% of people
  2. A;GBadAsian Flush; worse hangovers; increased risk of esophageal cancer; East Asian ancestry; Disulfiram probably not effective for alcoholism.Important · 3.515% of people

All about rs671

Notes

From SNPedia

Two working copies of Aldehyde Dehydrogenase (ALDH2) mean you won't turn bright red when you drink alcohol, unlike most Asians. After your body turns alcohol into the dangerous acetaldehyde, this gene quickly turns the acetaldehyde into vinegar. It also stops the acetaldehyde in cigarettes from causing Esophageal Cancer. It reduces hangovers compared to Asians, but less hangovers and flushing obviously increases the risk of alcoholism. Alcoholism can be treated effectively with the drug Disulfiram (Antabuse) which would stop this gene from working and cause the Asian flush in non-Asians. PMC2659709 ncbi.nlm.nih.gov"AALDH2-deficient individuals are at much higher risk of esophageal cancer (specifically squamous cell carcinoma) from alcohol consumption than individuals with fully active ALDH2. This is particularly unfortunate as esophageal cancer is one of the deadliest cancers worldwide, with five-year survival rates of 15.6% in the United States, 12.3% in Europe, and 31.6% in Japan"

Source and license

Adapted from rs671(G;G) on SNPedia, using a snapshot taken October 16, 2026. SNPedia content is shared under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US, and this page is shared under the same license.

SNPedia is a community-edited wiki. Its entries can be incomplete, out of date or wrong, and nothing here is a diagnosis or medical advice. Magnitude is a community rating of how interesting a genotype is, not a risk score.