Could This Be The End of Hangovers? Science Thinks So

Amaze Lab

After a night out drinking a lot of us wake up the next morning feeling terrible. However, a new gel being developed by materials scientists at ETH Zurich, could prevent a hangover before it ever even begins.

Transcript

00:00After a night out drinking, a lot of us wake up the next morning feeling like this.

00:07However, a new gel being developed by materials scientists at ETH Zurich

00:11could prevent a hangover before it even happens.

00:14It's made of milk proteins and gold nanoparticles,

00:17and preliminary tests in mice show some extremely promising results.

00:20So how does it work?

00:21The researchers say that the gel shifts the breakdown of alcohol

00:25from the liver to the digestive tract.

00:27In contrast to when alcohol is metabolized in the liver,

00:30no harmful acetaldehyde is produced as an intermediate product,

00:33and acetaldehyde is why you get nausea, headaches, and other hangover symptoms.

00:38In their lab tests, researchers were able to reduce the blood alcohol levels in intoxicated mice

00:42by an astounding 40% in just 30 minutes,

00:45with the gel breaking down alcohol with a far less toxic byproduct,

00:49acetic acid, instead of acetaldehyde.

00:51They also discovered the daily ingestion of alcohol along with the gold nanoparticle gel

00:56resulted in less weight loss and better fat metabolism in the livers.

01:00They say this could mean the gel was preventing damage to multiple organs as well.

01:04The one caveat?

01:05The gel must be ingested before the alcohol leaves the digestive tract

01:08and enters the bloodstream.

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