BEIJING, March 25 (Xinhuanet) -- U.S. and Japanese researchers find that Asians who get flushing when they drink too much alcohol have a higher risk of getting esophageal cancer, according to media reports Wednesday.

    The study said about a third of East Asians -- Chinese, Japanese and Koreans -- have an enzyme deficiency called aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 that results in problems in metabolizing alcohol, accompanied by a flushing face, nausea and a rapid heartbeat.

    This trait puts them at higher risk of developing esophageal cancer, an especially deadly type with five-year survival rates of 12 to 31 percent.

    The deficiency is reported to occur in people who have a variation in the ALDH gene, which makes the enzyme.

    People with two copies of this gene variant have such extreme symptoms that they avoid drinking alcohol.

    "The concern is for people who have one copy," said Philip Brooks of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, whose study appears in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine, "because they can tolerate drinking."

    "In general, people with one copy have about a six to ten fold increase in the incidence of esophageal cancer," he said.

    (Agencies)