The Documentary:

She's cute, she's Canadian and she's a comedian. Follow Katherine Ryan on her quest to find out the secrets hidden in her genes. Is there such a thing as a fat gene? How much do genes affect personality? And how will the results of Katherine's tests impact her day-to-day life? A funny, thought-provoking look at the world of genetic testing.

WEEK 3: BOOZE

ARE KATHERINE'S HANGOVERS CAUSED BY GENES... OR GIN?

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I want, like, parts of me to be in the baby, and not parts of Wade.
And, like, I could just take--
If I could just pick and choose, like Mr. Potato Head...
I don't want to compromise, like, my style and my voice.
Like, would I normally say, you know, like,
"Oh, I got a genetic test back for alcohol"?
"You know, ah, my tolerance is--"
I don't know, like,
hopefully I'll be able to write something funny about it.
That's all, like, part of the challenge.
And maybe it'll make me, you know,
learn how to sit down and write something,
and be a better writer.
Because right now I'm for comedy.
All I do is just randomly plot ideas out of nowhere.
The way we respond to alcohol is controlled in part by genes.
So, so...
Let's picture it. You're out on the town...
I'm curious to see whether your profile matches with your behaviour.
You're out on the town, and you've had a few.
Something happened to the colour of your skin.
We're going to the party.
I'm Nicole Scherzinger from the Pussycat Dolls.
I'm Nicola, the ginger from Girls Aloud.
-You wish you were. -Bet you all want to be.
I look nice in night vision, though.
Drinking does make me sick.
Really sick.
To your stomach?
To my stomach and to my head,
and for the next three days of my life.
I get really bad hangovers.
But do you get bright red when you drink?
No, I don't get red.
Well, that is interesting, because according to your genes,
you shouldn't.
Oh, really? Okay.
I thought maybe I would. Everything else makes me red.
The most drunk I've ever been was right before I moved to the U.K.
One of my good friends puts on, like, a gay comedy room.
It's actually called Bitch Salad.
And because everyone was there,
and it was this atmosphere of celebratory, you know, sending off,
I drank so much.
And I woke up the next morning
on the floor of the hotel room by the door.
And the first thing I did was I looked under the blanket for Biggie.
And he was sleeping right there, right next to me like he always does.
And I was like, "Okay. So Biggie is safe."
Then I looked around, and my other girlfriends were just passed out
around the hotel room.
And I was sick for the next three days.
I believe to this day that I almost died that night.
She can't handle booze.
She, uh...
You know, guys will say, "She's crazy when she's drunk."
Yeah, she's a little...
She-- It just affects her in a different way.
And I think, when we first started dating, I was like--
There was once she got drunk-- I was like, "What the...?"
There's a subset of poor people out there
who just take a couple of sips and they go bright red like a lobster.
You've got these two proteins in your blood stream,
and as soon as they detect that there's any alcohol in the system,
they race in there and they break it down into something that's harmless.
But people who flush when they have alcohol,
they flush because they are missing these two proteins.
Their genes are broken.
And they can't actually break down the alcohol.
So it makes them really sick. Alcohol is really toxic.
-Yeah. -And we all know that.
I mean, why do we drink alcohol?
-To get crazy. -Well...
Maybe that's one answer. I think alcohol has a lot of social benefits.
And I think when our ancestors were trying to,
you know, get along more, maybe build civilizations,
alcohol was probably quite important as a lubricant.
-Yeah. -So that sort of thing, but also...
...people think maybe there was a lot of disease around,
and alcohol is, you know, it's great for sterilization.
So people are thinking that maybe drinking alcohol
was really good at getting rid of dysentery.
The Asians were developing medicine, and doing good things.
And the Irish people were getting drunk and drinking from cows.
Yes. It doesn't look good, does it?
No, but it makes sense. I can see my grandparents doing that.
I am Canadian, so it's hard for me to adjust to the British life.
I really want to fit in with the London people.
You know, like a British girl.
So I've stopped saying "hi" to strangers.
I've, uh...
...started getting drunk and shagging them.
This is how big it grew.
First,
it looked like a gummy bear.
Here.
And now it looks like this.
So it's getting darker and more tanned.
-Did they do an intelligence one? -They did.
I didn't see that one.
No, it was buried. I found it.
Buried! You've got to be smart to find that one.

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