Why is methanol more toxic than ethanol?
I have no idea where odimwitdwom is going with his answer, so I will answer as best I can. First, methanol itself is not very toxic. Whoa, that’s surprising right? Its pretty much on par with ethanol (found in alcoholic beverages.) Methanol has to first be turned into formaldehyde in the body. Humans have an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase, which oxidizes alcohol compounds (adds an oxygen, effectively.) If you drink a beer, the ethanol is converted to acetaldehyde which is a slightly toxic intermediate. To expunge it, it is then converted by aldehyde dehydrogenase to acetate (or as you may know it, vinegar.) Acetate is not so bad. Some common drugs for treating alcoholism work by inhibiting the conversion of acetaldehyde to acetate, which makes the patient violently ill. Like I said, its toxic. Methanol’s metabolism utilizes the exact same two enzymes (alcohol dehydrogenase and aldehyde dehydrogenase.) The difference is that when methanol is converted to an aldehyde, it forms forma
