Will there be no hangover?

The "hangover pill" was successfully tested on mice

Sergey Vasiliev, Naked Science, based on The Conversation: A hangover pill? Tests on drunk mice show promise

Despite tens of thousands of years of drinking alcoholic beverages, humanity still cannot cope with a banal hangover. According to Yunfeng Lu, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, up to ten percent of calls to emergency physicians in the United States are associated with acute alcohol poisoning, which also remains a serious risk factor for death from many diseases, including cardiovascular diseases and liver damage.

In fact, from the point of view of physiology, the body is only fighting poisoning. Ethanol is a poison, and it is in the liver that the main steps of its metabolism and neutralization are realized: transformation into even more toxic acetaldehyde, and then into harmless acetic acid. However, with an excess of alcohol, the second, slower stage does not keep up with the first, and acetaldehyde accumulates in the body. At the same time, a large amount of energy is consumed, which is withdrawn from other consumers. All this, coupled with dehydration, leads to a very severe and even dangerous hangover.

Liver cells (hepatocytes) convert alcohol into acetaldehyde using the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase, and acetaldehyde into vinegar – acetaldehyde dehydrogenase. In addition, the enzyme catalase neutralizes dangerous hydrogen peroxide molecules formed during reactions. Yunfeng Lu and his colleagues tried to combine three proteins into a single "hangover pill" – or "antidote against alcohol intoxication," as scientists themselves call it in an article published in the journal Advanced Materials (Xu et al., A Hepatocyte‐Mimicking Antidote for Alcohol Intoxication).

All three enzymes have been studied well for a long time, the technologies for their production have been worked out, so the main problem in creating such a drug remains its accurate and safe delivery to liver cells. To do this, the proteins were packed into biocompatible nanocapsules that ensure their work in the right place. The prototype was tested on laboratory mice – and after four hours, the alcohol level in their blood was 45 percent lower than in the control group of rodents who received only alcohol, but not the "antidote".

Moreover, the acetaldehyde content in these animals did not increase, remaining at an extremely low level. The difference was also noticeable to the naked eye: after the injection of nanocapsules, drunk mice (who, like humans, eventually tend to fall into a deep sleep) woke up earlier and looked more cheerful than the control group. According to Yunfeng Lu, scientists are going to start testing on humans within a year.

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