Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

ethz.ch

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 263 posts

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#31

Post by FredPret »

joekrill wrote: post #22
FredPret wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people are uncomfortable with you not drinking, that's very much on them

Agreed. And ideally that shouldn't matter. But in the real world there are other consequences and side effects. Maybe I don't want to make them uncomfortable. Maybe I just don't want to deal with the nagging, "busting my chops", or the questions about why I'm not drinking. Maybe I want to avoid some preconceived notions certain people may have about people who don't drink. So even if it's on them, there are still per…

People will take their cue from you as to how to respond. If you act embarrassed about it, they’ll react accordingly. If it’s no big deal to you, same thing for them.

I quit cold turkey years ago. I was worried about the same things. But even my most macho & hard-drinking friends just accepted it without comment.

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#32

Post by colecut »

hn72774 wrote: post #25
joekrill wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's many occasions where I don't want to drink, but not doing so can make things uncomfortable. It's unfortunate, but there's lots of occasions where abstaining can make other people uncomfortable, or cause them to give you a hard time, or any number of other things. I would love to be able to take something that allows me drink but with none of the side effects, just to avoid potential uncomfortable situations.…

Club soda with lime. No one knows there's not vodka in it but you.

Club soda and bitters has been a recent goto

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#33

Post by sctb »

jawns wrote: post #28

If you're an alcoholic, and your body is physically dependent on alcohol consumption, would this allow you to satisfy your physical cravings without the deleterious effects normally associated with alcohol addiction? Kind of like how a nicotine patch helps satisfy the physical addiction?

That's exactly what benzodiazepines are for, but only for short-term taper protocols as the dependence/withdrawal profile over the long term is worse than alcohol. Medium-term can be covered by gabapentin.

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#34

Post by TacticalCoder »

circlefavshape wrote: post #8

Something to sober you up if you're already drunk would be amazing, but I don't think this will do that

> Something to sober you up if you're already drunk would be amazing ...

But it's the fun of alcohol!

What'd be amazing would be something that really works against the headaches and/or prevent vomiting. Basically something for the next day or even the next two days (when you get old, if you party too hard it can take two days to feel good again: I hate it so at 50 I very rarely party hard anymore: maybe once a year).

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#35

Post by pavlov »

aredox wrote: post #26
throwup238 wrote: post #4

> In the future, people who take the gel could reduce the harmful and intoxicating effects of alcohol. I understand harm reduction but what is the point of reducing the intoxicating effects of alcohol? What's the point?

Alcohol is a solvent for many flavours. That's why you have a lot of it in perfumes, and that's why alcohol-free drinks don't taste as good as the originals. In Europe, we drink a lot of alcohol with food exactly for that reason (wine dissolves the fats of the sauce or just the meat and mixes and enhances the taste). I'd really like to enjoy it without any drunkenness afterwards nor any effect on my health.

Yeah, if there was a product that would let me enjoy real wine but the effect of the alcohol would be similar to a 3% mild beer, I would use that fairly often. A typical wine at 11-12% is a bit too strong for many situations.

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#36

Post by striking »

tguvot wrote: post #29
striking wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zbiotics targets acetaldehyde, not ethyl alcohol. From the article: > The gel shifts the breakdown of alcohol from the liver to the digestive tract. In contrast to when alcohol is metabolised in the liver, no harmful acetaldehyde is produced as an intermediate product,” explains Professor Raffaele Mezzenga from the Laboratory of Food & Soft Materials at ETH Zurich. Acetaldehyde is toxic and is responsible for many he…

i meant conceptually even if mechanism of action is different.

Sure, if the difference between being intoxicated and not is merely conceptual to you. For me it is not, but to each their own.

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#37

Post by triceratops »

alamortsubite wrote: post #9
throwup238 wrote: post #4

> In the future, people who take the gel could reduce the harmful and intoxicating effects of alcohol. I understand harm reduction but what is the point of reducing the intoxicating effects of alcohol? What's the point?

Non-alcoholic beer sales are close to $40B/year globally and going up. Generally speaking, the flavor of non-alcoholic beer pales in comparison to the real thing. Then there's also the market for wine and spirits.

Why drink grain juice when you could drink fruit juice?

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#38

Post by readthenotes1 »

sctb wrote: post #33
jawns wrote: post #28

If you're an alcoholic, and your body is physically dependent on alcohol consumption, would this allow you to satisfy your physical cravings without the deleterious effects normally associated with alcohol addiction? Kind of like how a nicotine patch helps satisfy the physical addiction?

That's exactly what benzodiazepines are for, but only for short-term taper protocols as the dependence/withdrawal profile over the long term is worse than alcohol. Medium-term can be covered by gabapentin.

I know an alcoholic who was also addicted to gabapentin. It didn't reduce his alcoholism, and even when he tried to stop drinking, he would get stoned on the gabapentin (and was largely unaware of his diminished state)

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#39

Post by rfrey »

throwup238 wrote: post #4

> In the future, people who take the gel could reduce the harmful and intoxicating effects of alcohol. I understand harm reduction but what is the point of reducing the intoxicating effects of alcohol? What's the point?

The hardest part of reducing my alcohol consumption is that I love red wine so much. The flavor, the aroma, the acidity, everything. I have stopped drinking all alcohol except red wine because of the health effects. I would be delighted to have a way to drink wine without any intoxication.

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#40

Post by readthenotes1 »

cvdub wrote: post #18
circlefavshape wrote: post #8

Something to sober you up if you're already drunk would be amazing, but I don't think this will do that

Agreed, not seeing many good use cases. It could be prescribed to alcoholics who can’t/won’t stop drinking to help them taper off alcohol, but people would just end up drinking more to counter it. The best use I can think of is for undercover agents to drink heavily and avoid intoxication!

That's enough of a good use case! It would have made my college years much better...
Post reply on HN