People have been devising their own homemade cures for hangovers as long as they've been drinking too much alcohol. Now researchers at UCLA may have developed a scientific solutions--a pill that can clear alcohol from the body even faster than the liver can on its own.
The research team has processed two enzymes into a pill form, which can be taken before drinking alcohol or when you're trying to flush alcohol from your body once you've imbibed too much. The pill chemically alters the digestive system, first with alcohol oxidase--which promotes alcohol oxidation, but with a toxic byproduct--and with a catalese, which converts the toxic chemical into water and oxygen.
In mice, the pill worked as an antidote to alcohol, as the blood alcohol levels were significantly lower after taking the pill than in the mice that did not get the pill. The enzyme combination also worked as a means to block alcohol absorption, where mice who received the pill had lower blood alcohol levels when the pill was taken before alcohol consumption.
After alcohol was consumed, blood alcohol levels were 15 percent lower after 45 minutes than those without the pill, 26 percent lower after 90 minutes and 35 percent lower after three hours.