No, you're not wrong if you're referring to methanol, you could well say methanol 'pickles' the liver and you'd be correct. With ethanol it's somewhat different, chimeracoder is correct when he says alcohol (i.e.: ethanol) is metabolized into acetaldehyde. Here's a slightly more detailed account:
From my understanding acetaldehyde is formed in the body by the partial oxidation of ethanol—if one's body oxidized it completely then I guess there would be little problem (but it doesn't)! Instead, the body has two goes at 'neutralizing' ethanol, acetaldehyde being the first metabolite and the second is that acetaldehyde is converted into vinegar (acetic acid) which is essentially harmless.
Methanol is worse—much more so. It's first-pass metabolite is formaldehyde (right, it's an excellent 'pickling' preservative), and the second-pass metabolite is formic acid (that's the stuff ants sting you with). Thus methanol double-whammies you and unfortunately it does it par excellence.
Methanol is damn horrible stuff really, less than 100ml can kill one outright and if you survive then, as chimeracoder says correctly, you'll likely be left permanently blind not to mention ending up with other serious problems. In fact, one of the emergency procedures for methanol poisoning is to repeatedly give copious quantities of ethanol for quite some length of time—as in the first instance it substitutes for methanol, ethanol's delaying action then gives the body much longer to metabolize methanol and this delay has the effect of ameliorating some of the damage it causes. Here, ethanol is much the lesser of two evils.
That said, acetaldehyde is more toxic than ethanol and it's far from being benign (for starters it's what gives you your hangover but that's not the end of it). Whilst it doesn't have the immediate punch of formaldehyde, acetaldehyde is nevertheless still dangerous for several reasons, first the body is capable of metabolizing ethanol in the liver with the enzyme acetaldehyde dehydrogenase however this process is not exactly straightforward nor is the metabolism of ethanol completely benign; second, the dangerous aspects of acetaldehyde dehydrogenase's metabolism of ethanol is that it often results in cumulative damage to the liver over the long-term, especially so when ethanol is taken in large amounts.
There's a few Wikis on this but they're a bit complicated for a quick understanding, nevertheless the second link on alcoholic liver disease has a nice diagram that illustrates how long-term liver damage happens:
Right, I shouldn't have used the word 'pickling' but I was using it in the vernacular and, as here, I did actually use it in inverted commas.
Another way of looking at it is that long-term ethanol/acetaldehyde damage to the liver leads to cirrhosis of the liver—and cirrhosis is in effect the death of liver cells which are then replaced by scar tissue (that's close enough to 'pickling' methinks).
From my understanding acetaldehyde is formed in the body by the partial oxidation of ethanol—if one's body oxidized it completely then I guess there would be little problem (but it doesn't)! Instead, the body has two goes at 'neutralizing' ethanol, acetaldehyde being the first metabolite and the second is that acetaldehyde is converted into vinegar (acetic acid) which is essentially harmless.
Methanol is worse—much more so. It's first-pass metabolite is formaldehyde (right, it's an excellent 'pickling' preservative), and the second-pass metabolite is formic acid (that's the stuff ants sting you with). Thus methanol double-whammies you and unfortunately it does it par excellence.
Methanol is damn horrible stuff really, less than 100ml can kill one outright and if you survive then, as chimeracoder says correctly, you'll likely be left permanently blind not to mention ending up with other serious problems. In fact, one of the emergency procedures for methanol poisoning is to repeatedly give copious quantities of ethanol for quite some length of time—as in the first instance it substitutes for methanol, ethanol's delaying action then gives the body much longer to metabolize methanol and this delay has the effect of ameliorating some of the damage it causes. Here, ethanol is much the lesser of two evils.
That said, acetaldehyde is more toxic than ethanol and it's far from being benign (for starters it's what gives you your hangover but that's not the end of it). Whilst it doesn't have the immediate punch of formaldehyde, acetaldehyde is nevertheless still dangerous for several reasons, first the body is capable of metabolizing ethanol in the liver with the enzyme acetaldehyde dehydrogenase however this process is not exactly straightforward nor is the metabolism of ethanol completely benign; second, the dangerous aspects of acetaldehyde dehydrogenase's metabolism of ethanol is that it often results in cumulative damage to the liver over the long-term, especially so when ethanol is taken in large amounts.
There's a few Wikis on this but they're a bit complicated for a quick understanding, nevertheless the second link on alcoholic liver disease has a nice diagram that illustrates how long-term liver damage happens:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetaldehyde_dehydrogenase
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholic_liver_disease
Right, I shouldn't have used the word 'pickling' but I was using it in the vernacular and, as here, I did actually use it in inverted commas.
Another way of looking at it is that long-term ethanol/acetaldehyde damage to the liver leads to cirrhosis of the liver—and cirrhosis is in effect the death of liver cells which are then replaced by scar tissue (that's close enough to 'pickling' methinks).