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New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

ethz.ch

171–180 of 263 posts

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#171

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

Turmeric-based drinks we can find here in Japan are said to work miracles against hangover. I rarely drink alcohol, so I can't tell whether that's true.

Unlikely. The alleged medical benefits of turmeric are largely illusory; the only medically interesting property that it's been conclusively shown to have is that it interferes with a wide range of biochemical assays.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jmedchem.6b00975

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#173

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

What we really need is something that helps quickly break down acetaldehyde, which is what alcohol is broken down to in your bloodstream and is responsible for all the negative side effects.

N-acetyl cysteine

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hangovers are a good part caused by by the body reacting to the "damage" that alcohol does: - Alcohol loosens the blood vessels, whereas a lot of the effects of a hangover are caused by the body then "over-constricting" when the aclohol goes away, causing headaches and nausea. The cause of the headache is similar for a brain-freeze from too much ice cream causing the veins in your neck and throat to constrict, though…

A reliable way to prevent hangovers in my experience is to simply pace yourself properly as well as eat and drink plenty of water. People go out partying on near-empty stomachs and take crazy amounts of alcoholic drinks with not so much as a drop of water all night; it's no surprise that their bodies react that extremely. Also, sticking to drinks with low levels of congeners helps immensely. Ethanol is already toxic…

I wonder if there's scientific consensus on how much water is "plenty". Like, what's the ABV I should target, averaged over every type of liquid I drank that night?

Regular beer contains about 20x as much water as it does ethanol (by volume), but apparently that's not enough. It's certainly better than wine, though, which only contains 6-8x the water and an entire catalogue of congeners.

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#175
post #18

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!

You could perhaps drink and drive.

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#176

> 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?

I like really strong drinks like overproof whiskey and IPAs and craft cocktails, which can be shockingly alcoholic sometimes. It would be nice to have essentially a higher alcohol tolerance so I could drink the drinks I like most more freely. Now, I usually just eat a huge meal before I drink a lot, but a pill would be much better.

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d probably have to drink heavily before I could eat significant quantities of Brussels sprouts…

Brussel sprouts are quite good these days, because they've been genetically engineered over the past 30 years to be less bitter. They're not your parents' sprouts anymore (especially roasted for that Maillard reaction, not boiled as they would've likely done).

Brussel sprouts at restaurants are basically candy lol. Yeah they're roasted and crispy and cooked with bacon fat and usually some sweet sauce added lol.

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d probably have to drink heavily before I could eat significant quantities of Brussels sprouts…

Brussel sprouts are quite good these days, because they've been genetically engineered over the past 30 years to be less bitter. They're not your parents' sprouts anymore (especially roasted for that Maillard reaction, not boiled as they would've likely done).

Are you working for Big Sprout? I seem to remember seeing that exact phrase on here in the last couple of months.

"Not your parents sprouts anymore"

For the record I loved them 30 years ago and still love em.

My recipe is very different to the modern fashion, boiled until mushy with a slice of smokey bacon, drain and eat with butter. They literally melt like butter - delicious.

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