Alkorin to Elotrans: Do anti-hangover drugs help against dizziness and headaches?

Doctor explains

Created: 10/11/2022, 8:30 p.m

By: Juliane Gutmann

You never want to do penance for too much alcohol the day before with a hangover?

Various means are intended to make the day after bearable.

But are the advertising promises correct?

The preparation Alkorin: A basic dietary supplement with choline, vitamins and minerals that is intended to optimally support the organism after a night of drinking.

The diarrhea drug Elotrans: A solution containing electrolytes that supplies the body with minerals and trace elements again after drinking alcohol.

In pharmacies and drugstores there are some remedies that promise quick relief from hangover symptoms.

professor dr

medical

Christian Prinz, Director of the Clinic for Gastroenterology at the Helios University Hospital in Wuppertal, explains in an interview with Der Spiegel how effective such preparations really are.

Whether it's a relaxed girls' evening or beer tent action: alcohol often flows by the liter on such occasions.

© Frédéric Cirou/Imago

The consequences of alcohol are played down

Prinz is rather skeptical about the image that the companies want to convey behind anti-hangover drugs: "You may be better able to compensate for the consequential damage of a hangover, but you still damage your body - especially your liver".

But in advertising, Katerfly, Alkorin, etc. are advertised with such ease, as if it were the most normal thing in the world that one drinks so much alcohol that one has to struggle with symptoms of poisoning such as nausea and headaches the next day.

However, the anti-hangover remedies from pharmacies and drugstores can still be useful to combat hangover symptoms such as headaches and dizziness, according to physician Prinz.

The vitamins and minerals it contains would help the body to regenerate.

Other substances contained also have an effect: "Zinc serves to strengthen the repair molecules in the body and choline strengthens the transmission between nerves and muscles, as a precursor for the important messenger substance acetylcholine," says Christian Prinz.

Alcohol survey

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Good alternatives to Elotrans and Co.

"If you know that you're going to drink a little something in the evening, you should be watering the whole day.

Preferably with mineral water," explained nutritionist Dr.

Yael Adler in a ZDF interview.

The reason: Alcohol not only removes water from the body, but also electrolytes such as potassium.

Hearty food on the day of the celebration also prevents the alcohol from being converted too quickly in the body, according to the doctor.

"Another home remedy that is popular with Asians, for example: brewer's yeast.

Many Asians lack or lack an enzyme that helps break down alcohol.

It's called acetaldehyde dehydrogenase, or ALDH for short.

Those affected often resort to the yeast, which ensures that the alcohol is fermented in the intestine.

It blocks alcohol absorption.

Brewer's yeast is usually found in the drugstore with cosmetics, because it also helps

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