Side effects include flushed skin, nausea, headache, and rapid heart beat. The cause is a buildup of acetaldehyde in the body. Acetaldehyde is highly toxic and a known carcinogen. When alcohol ...

Ethanol is metabolized to acetaldehyde via alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), and acetaldehyde is further metabolized to acetate, which eventually leads to the production of carbon dioxide and water.

Even so, some early preparations used acetaldehyde, the aldehyde that corresponds to vinyl alcohol. In a 1958 patent to Celanese (New York City), inventor Arthur W. Schnizer reported the reaction of ...