Sure, we all love to down tequila shots with our friends or share one-too many pints far after the football match has ended.
What we don’t like are the hangovers that hit us in the morning, making us vow to never drink again – a vow we’ll probably break the following weekend.
However, that drawback might soon become a thing of the past. A team of scientists from China have reportedly discovered a probiotic that could cure hangovers.
The scientists, in their attempt to reduce the damaging effects of alcohol consumption, created an oral hADH1 B-expressing probiotic to help break down the alcohol in the intestinal tract.
The researchers tested the probiotic they created on a group of intoxicated mice (we’ll set aside the ethical dilemmas for now). Before testing the probiotic, the mice were found to recover from the alcohol after six to ten hours on their own.
An hour afterwards, the mice were placed into an ‘exercise recorder’, monitoring every 15 seconds to see how quickly they recovered as some of them had ingested the probiotic.
The study found that the mice who had taken the probiotic regained their exercise capacity after around 5.5 hours, compared to the 6.4 hours of those who did not.
On quarter of the mice who took the probiotic did not lose their self-righting reflex and exercised throughout the whole process.
This means the probiotic not only reduced how much alcohol was absorbed in the body but also increased the length of time the host was able to tolerate the alcohol.
It might be a while before we start using such miracle drugs to cure our weekend bender hangovers, but the scientists from the study are hopeful that this could pave ways for new and more effective hangover aids.
We’re still a bit worried about those mice though…
#MaltaDaily