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New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

ethz.ch

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Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#181

Post by prmoustache »

kijin wrote: post #174
filleduchaos wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Unless it is a strong beer with 2 digits of alcohol per volume, I rarely get drunk enough on beers alone because of all I need to pee to get to that point.

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#182

Post by prmoustache »

idontpost wrote: post #92
TacticalCoder wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)…

I now alternate between regular beer and NA beer. I get to drink as much as I want, I do enjoy the taste, and I don't get drunk or hungover.

I am not looking at being drunk while having beers but haven't found a non-alcoholic beer yet that would be nearly drinkable.

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#183

Post by prmoustache »

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!

As long as it doesn't leave your palet with a taste of the gel, the point is to enjoy the taste of these drinks without the effects of alcohol. Not everybody drink alcohol for the alteration effects and the non-alcohol versions of most beverages is so shitty you don't really want them.

My mother for example hate the feeling of being intoxicated, even a little. So she only drink one glass on occasions and barely finishes it. She would definitely enjoy it more if she could have different wines over the course of a meal. It would also be useful if you want to enjoy the taste of some drinks with alcohol but you need to drive or you are in an on-call schedule.

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#184

Post by jszymborski »

teekert wrote: post #75

[flagged]

How does alternating with water alleviate the carcinogenicity (and other health-related issues) of alcohol?

Perhaps this gel can help? Perhaps trials will show long term health benefits.

Also, please don't conflate addiction with a lack of discipline or restraint.

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#185

Post by stockboss »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #172

As an alcohol-hating wine-lover I can't wait to get this product. Hopefully something similar is going to be invented to break down sugar as well.

what for? sugar is already broken down in your body into glucose to be absorbed. there are already enzymes you can take to help break it down faster, but it's all going to be absorbed regardless.

perhaps what you really want is something to block glucose absorption?

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#186

Post by mrtesthah »

manmal wrote: post #59
fluxist wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dihydromyricetin[1] can accomplish this remarkably effectively. It's available on Amazon. Also works great for hangovers. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3292407/

Great suggestion. There is also Kislip, which seems to be based on probiotics and, like DHM, also helps metabolize acetaldehyde. Acetium (a Finnish product) also claims to lower acetaldehyde, but that might be a localized effect (mouth/nasopharynx + GI tract).

Zbiotics gives you genetically modified probiotic bacteria that secrete ALDH into your gut.

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#187

Post by Jensson »

stockboss wrote: post #185
qwerty456127 wrote: post #172

As an alcohol-hating wine-lover I can't wait to get this product. Hopefully something similar is going to be invented to break down sugar as well.

what for? sugar is already broken down in your body into glucose to be absorbed. there are already enzymes you can take to help break it down faster, but it's all going to be absorbed regardless. perhaps what you really want is something to block glucose absorption?

You could invent resistant bacteria that eats all the sugar in your stomach. There are already such but they are lethal if you don't do much about them, but maybe it is possible to make nice versions of them that just eats sugar and don't kill you by eating everything.

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#188

Post by maeil »

hylaride wrote: post #41
TacticalCoder wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)…

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…

I'm sure I'm not the only one who just really enjoys the taste of alcohol and would love a way to drink more of it without its effects, both the "positive" and the negative side.

It's genuinely one of my big wishes! I'd pay 5x the normal price for a bottle of whisky that neither has the "good" nor "bad" parts, as if it was water but with the same taste.

Re: New gel breaks down alcohol in the body

#190

Post by Tade0 »

mft_ wrote: post #62
ginko wrote: post #53

I wonder how that would affect the calories of the alcohol. Apparently the ethanol gets broken down into acetic acid, which I believe can't be digested further? Does that mean you also wouldn't gain weight when drinking dry beer or wine? EDIT: Apparently acetic acid _does_ have calories. Didn't know that.

Interesting question! From this article[0] it seems ~60% of the calories in lager come from the alcohol - presumably ~40% come from carbohydrates. And from Google, acetic acid is 349 kcal / 100g, versus pure ethanol at 700 kcal / 100g. So if this approach converted 100% of alcohol to acetic acid, you'd drop the calories from lager by ~30% overall. To your question, dry wine or lower-carb beer would be proportionally…

> And from Google, acetic acid is 349 kcal / 100g, versus pure ethanol at 700 kcal / 100g.

Metabolism matters. Gasoline is over 800kcal/100g, but you wouldn't get that much from it (if anything at all).

Alcohol has a particularly long metabolic pathway, which after ingesting approximately 20-30g gets cut short to one where acetic acid is excreted (commonly known as "breaking the seal") and the overall upper energy yield limit becomes approximately 110kcal/100g.

Executive summary is that on a given session it's the first two 12oz (330ml) beers which provide most of the calories from alcohol and their contribution is on par with a snickers bar.

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