New Anti-Hangover Supplement in the UK can Break Down Alcohol in Minutes!

"The pre-drinking pill that works!"

A hangover prevention pill has made it to the UK market, known to break down alcohol in your body in minutes, according to ScienceAlert. The Swedish-made Myrkl supplement claims to reduce up to 70 percent alcohol concentration in the blood after 60 minutes of having a drink, which means if someone drinks 50 ml of 40 percent spirits containing 20 ml of pure alcohol, as little as 6 ml of the alcohol will enter the bloodstream.

Moreover, alcohol reduction is also believed to mirror reduction in the short-term effects of alcohol, such as euphoria and reduced anxiety. The Swedish firm suggests taking two pills of the anti-hangover supplement one to 12 hours before drinking alcohol.

Can the Pills Really Prevent Hangovers?

According to science, hangovers are mainly due to the dehydrating effects of alcohol, which produces headaches. Moreover, the direct effect of alcohol on the stomach can also cause a sore stomach and nausea. These are common group of unpleasant signs and symptoms that can develop after drinking too much alcohol as per the Mayo Clinic, adding that frequent hangovers, aside from what you can feel, are also associated with poor performance and conflict at work.

While most hangovers go away on their own, they can last up to 24 hours, thus the pills. However, since the pills only work after alcohol has passed through the stomach, they will not stop its effect on the stomach.

A single published research study in the journal SAGE shows evidence of how Myrkl works, where 24 healthy young white adults were asked to take either two Myrkl pills or dummy pills (placebo) each day for seven days. Then, they were given a small amount of alcohol (between 50 and 90 ml of spirits) based on their weight and tested their blood alcohol level for the next two hours.

Results show that the amount of alcohol in the blood was 70 percent lower in those who took Myrkl than with the dummy pill within the first 60 minutes. However, there are several problems that made the results weaker.

Weak Points and Unanswered Questions

The study was indeed considered as well thought-out and designed, but a few things may have made the findings weak in terms of accuracy. First, the researchers only reported results from 14 of the 24 people because ten had lower blood alcohol levels at the start, and second, results varied between different people.

Lastly, researchers tested seven days of treatment before a single drink of alcohol, but the company recommend only two pills one to 12 hours before drinking any amount.

There are also questions that have been raised such as its effectiveness on different groups of people (it is known that alcohol is absorbed differently according to weight, sex, physical activity, and food consumption), people with gut or liver disease (and does medication affect the pills?), differences in the effect of the pill between men and women, and many others.

Nonetheless, these factors need to be looked into more if the pills are to be marketed around the world.

While a pre-drinking pill to prevent the hangover would most certainly be of benefit to many people, the best cure for a hangover remains drinking less alcohol the day before.