A Chinese study has just measured the effect of several drinks on the speed of liver enzymes to eliminate alcohol. Two sodas would increase the work of liver enzymes.
Nausea, headache, pasty tongue, the aftermath of drunken evenings are often difficult. And for good reason, when we consume alcohol in high doses, moreover over a short period, the body is put to the test. Salty coffee, olive spoon, drink plenty of water everyone knows grandmother’s remedies for painful after-festivities, but are they really effective? According to a Chinese study which has just evaluated 57 drinks, Sprite, this sweet lemon-flavored soda, would be the best remedy to relieve the side effects of alcohol abuse.
Alcohol, not directly responsible for the headache
At the start of their study published in the journal Food and Function of the Royal Society of Chemistry, these researchers from the University of Guangzhou first tried to describe precisely the symptoms of a hangover, while analyzing the factors really involved. As a result, nausea and headaches are not directly attributable to alcohol, but rather to the chemical mechanism that takes place when the body defends itself to get back on its feet.
Concretely, when faced with ingestion of alcohol, the liver releases an enzyme called ADH which breaks down the ethanol contained in the alcohol and transforms it into acetaldehyde. Other enzymes then come into play, to help the body to recover, and it is all these biological stages which would be the origin of the symptoms of a hangover. It is therefore from this observation that this Chinese team wanted to show whether certain drinks promoted or delayed the natural process of eliminating alcohol.
Sprite, black tea, Bloody Mary …
These scientists therefore compared the effect of different drinks on the rate at which liver enzymes remove alcohol from the body. The team mainly tested commercially available herbal teas and drinks in China, but also a few sodas and even the famous Bloody Mary. Although the study does not specify whether it was really “Sprite”, a soda with lemon and lime extracts called “xue bi”, also passed the test bench.
Doctors have made drink these different drinks to individuals who have consumed alcohol, in order to then measure the levels of the different enzymes responsible for eliminating alcohol. Result: tea and herbal drinks would rather slow down the functioning of these enzymes and therefore prolong, according to the authors of the study, the effects of the hangover. Conversely, the Chinese equivalent of Sprite as well as another plain soda, “hui yi di da shui”, were the only drinks capable of increasing the speed of work of liver enzymes.
Experts warn against encouraging drunkenness
The authors of this work are currently unable to explain how the Chinese Sprite works to accelerate the process of eliminating alcohol from the body. They point out that more studies will be needed to confirm these results.
This study was widely publicized, especially in the Anglo-Saxon media, some of which shouted for the miracle cure to quickly forget the nights of drunkenness. A message that doctors do not approve, especially those specializing in the treatment of alcoholism. According to them, praising the merits of a drink against the devastating effects of alcohol is to trivialize or even encourage excess.
“It is nothing new that medical products or grandmother’s remedies are supposed to decrease the effects of alcohol. (…) But that is no less worrying, because it implicitly encourages drunkenness: we make people believe that drunkenness is the norm, while it is pathological to be ill after drinking. », Explains Professor Michel Lejoyeux in The Plus of the New Observer. “Alcohol-induced ailments are beneficial, they alert people to the toxicity of the product and erasing them is dangerous. It’s as if we hit each other with a hammer on the head every weekend and we were happy to have found a good pain reliever to stop feeling the pain, ”he adds.
.
