Hangover Cure: Science Finally Cracks One of Mankind’s Most Debilitating Diseases

By Danny Gallagher February 20, 2013 3:03 pm Posted in Drink, Lifestyle, News-ish Danny Gallagher g+ page

hangover

No man is invincible. You might be able to feel manly when you deplete the whiskey stock of your favorite bar drinking all other patrons under the table. However, you’ll turn into a sniveling, whiny schoolgirl when you wake up the next morning with a massive hangover. [Image via Shutterstock.]

Don’t fret. Mankind has had to deal with “the morning after” for centuries but scientists may have finally found a foolproof way to beat it. Chemical and biomolecular engineers at UCLA and the University of Southern California invented a “cocktail” that can erase the most eye-aching, vomit inducing, head splitting hangover you can throw at it.

This magic elixir uses a special batch of enzymes that turns the human stomach into a giant liver. UCLA Professor Yunfeng Lu said the cocktail would “almost be like having millions of living cell units inside your stomach or in your intestine, helping you to digest alcohol.” The cocktail is also taken before the drinker passes out, assuming that they have enough motor skills to actually drink it by then.

Unfortunately, this magic cure isn’t perfect. Some of the enzymes used to make the cocktail can be quite harmful such as “Oxidase,” which is a catalyst that can produce hydrogen peroxide when it reacts with molecular oxygen. UCLA Professor Martina Stenzel also noted that it might protect your liver but it’s also possible that the enzymes from the cocktail “might be there for an extended period of time” and those additional enzymes could “actually cause liver damage.”

Still, the good news is that if it kills you, that might be better than your hangover.

via Opposing Views