That's not quite what's going on there. The drug in question worked by inhibiting aldehyde dehydrogenase, which is an enzyme which handles the direct metabolites of alcohol, but which isn't specific to just ethanol metabolism. All sorts of aldehydes are produced and consumed by the human body and need to be dealt with.
ALDH is involved in the conversion of retinol to retinoic acid, which is necessary to produce sperm, but the relationship is more of a general purpose tool having many applications than a bizarre coincidence of evolution.
Treadwheel t1_j9ik046 wrote
Reply to comment by urbanek2525 in What are more accepted hypotheses that similarly explain the aspects of hominid evolution that the "pseudoscientific" aquatic ape theory does? by KEVLAR60442
That's not quite what's going on there. The drug in question worked by inhibiting aldehyde dehydrogenase, which is an enzyme which handles the direct metabolites of alcohol, but which isn't specific to just ethanol metabolism. All sorts of aldehydes are produced and consumed by the human body and need to be dealt with.
ALDH is involved in the conversion of retinol to retinoic acid, which is necessary to produce sperm, but the relationship is more of a general purpose tool having many applications than a bizarre coincidence of evolution.