A miracle pill, really?
This is the promise of the Swedish laboratory "Myrkl", which claims to have developed the first pill capable of effectively eliminating alcohol from your body.
Ingesting two tablets 1 hour before starting to drink alcohol would result in "
the elimination of 70% of the alcoholic substance directly in the intestine
", promises the manufacturer.
Could this be the cure for a hangover?
Nope !
While it has already been marketed in the United Kingdom since July, this product makes people cringe.
Mickael Naassila, president of the Société Française d'Alcoologie and professor of addictology at the University of Picardie Jules Verne, in Amiens, reacts to the harmful effects of this type of product.
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“We are not all equal in the face of rising blood alcohol levels”
When you drink alcohol, a small part is degraded by bacteria in the oral cavity while the rest is routed through the digestive tract: the alcohol passes through the stomach and then the small intestine, where 80% is made absorption.
The liver then takes care of breaking down the alcohol via complex enzymatic processes.
However, the day after drunken evenings, the symptoms of an excess are sometimes inevitable: headaches, nausea, pasty mouth... This is the "hangover".
To remedy this, Myrkl has developed a new dietary supplement that would degrade 70% of the alcohol ingested during its passage through the intestine before it even reaches the liver.
But what is this pill really worth?
“
I would not conclude anything from this result because you must first know that we are not all equal in the face of the rise in alcohol level.
From one individual to another, we do not absorb alcohol as quickly and this ingested alcohol will not pass into the blood at the same speed.
So there are big individual differences
,” explains Mickael Naassila.
In the event that this pill would act, it is therefore highly likely that it would not do so in the same way depending on the metabolism of consumers.
The blood alcohol level is indeed conditioned by multiple factors: the speed of consumption, the tolerance of the person to alcohol, and the fact that the stomach is full or not.
“
If the stomach is full, the alcohol passes less quickly through the small intestine and therefore
the blood alcohol level
will rise less quickly.
".
According to the researcher, it is therefore very unlikely that this product will cause the advertised effect.
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Too few and almost sober participants
In concrete terms, half of the participants in the study were asked to drink alcohol after having ingested either 2 Myrkl capsules or a placebo (pills with no active ingredient) in a randomized manner (i.e. selected at random ) and blinded (participants did not know if they were taking the pill or the placebo) for one week.
Then the scientists measured the alcohol level (in the blood) and the alcohol in the expired air of the subjects.
Before and after absorption, the latter also had to carry out a small cognitive test.
However, one of the main problems with this trial is that the number of participants was far too small.
"
There were only 24 individuals who participated and in addition, for half of them, the authors realized that alcohol was not detectable in the blood
", indicates Mickael Naassila.
Indeed, the scientists made the recruited men and women drink a glass of alcohol containing 0.3g of ethanol per kg of body weight.
Too little to test any effect on hangovers.
“
For an 80 kg man, this corresponds to approximately 24 grams of ethanol, or 2.4 standard glasses served at the bar,
specifies Professor Naassila.
I'm not even sure that with this amount an 80 kg person goes to 0.5g/L of blood, he adds.
And even if that's the case, there's almost no chance of having a severe hangover the next day.
Indeed, the behavioral tests revealed no symptoms related to excess alcohol.
These tests consist of providing participants with a sheet of paper on which the numbers 1 to 25 appear: they are asked to connect the numbers in order without lifting the pencil from the sheet.
For each test, carried out before and after alcohol consumption, the scientists measure the time required for the subject to perform the task, which makes it possible to assess a potential alteration in psychomotor ability.
“
These tests were inconclusive because there was no time difference
, says Professor Naassila.
This shows that the individuals were obviously not drunk enough.
In other words, we are being sold a product that claims to have a hangover effect that has not been tested for hangover symptoms at all.
»
According to the researcher, for the results to be conclusive, it would have been necessary to "
take a larger sample of men and women, of different weights, and make them consume several quantities of alcohol by gradually increasing the doses
".
Then, possible effects on alcohol degradation could be determined by assessing the absence or presence of signs of drunkenness or hangover (and their intensity) in subjects who received Myrkl capsules.
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Probiotics, L-cysteine and vitamin B12
In the scientific publication, the authors praise the "
natural
" compounds of this pill which contains probiotics, an amino acid called L-cysteine and vitamin B12.
"
At first glance, it's reassuring to know that we are using natural compounds such as probiotics and vitamins
," says Professor Naassila.
According to him, the probiotics used, bacteria, would indeed have an interest because, by going to stick in the intestine, "
we imagine that they are able to metabolize alcohol before it passes into the blood, which would help to lower blood alcohol levels
.
L-cysteine, it would act in "
trapping acetaldehyde, a toxic and carcinogenic compound, resulting from the breakdown of alcohol and contributing to hangover effects such as headaches or nausea
”.
As for vitamins, it is known that alcohol greatly interferes with their passage.
"
Vitamin
B12
is important because it provides energy to our cells and promotes the production of red blood cells and myelin, the white matter of the nervous system
", specifies Professor Naassila.
By adding vitamin B12, this pill could therefore act against a possible vitamin deficiency and avoid cerebral effects on myelin.
But no recommendations from health authorities exist regarding these compounds for alcohol degradation.
"
We are made to believe that it is a clever mixture whose effect remains, to say the least, inconclusive in this study
”, indignant Mickael Naassila.
Ambiguous communication
If there were miraculous drugs capable of degrading the alcohol we ingest, wouldn't that ultimately be an excuse for not paying attention to its consumption?
The communication around this "miracle pill" is ambiguous because it suggests that you can drink a lot of alcohol without any problem.
Some even speak of an excuse to drive drunk or have more drinks in the evening.
"
It's a dishonest message that increases the risk of people finding themselves in blood alcohol levels above the thresholds, or even putting themselves in danger
", worries the researcher.
Remember that 30% of fatal accidents are due to excessive alcohol intake according to government figures.
Besides,
it would neither prevent aggression of the gastric mucosa nor protect against other undesirable effects of alcohol, such as hypoglycaemia or dehydration
”.
“Hangover drugs have been talked about for two decades and their use in clinical trials has sometimes even led to deaths.
All meta-analyses have concluded that these blood alcohol products are ineffective.”
Professor Michael Naassila.
Detox drinks based on Korean pear juice, rehydrating tablets and serums of all kinds
... death.
All the meta-analyses on the subject have also concluded that these products against alcoholism were ineffective
”, warns Mickael Naassila.
Their misuse conveys false beliefs and causes concern in particular because they are the subject of marketing strategies aimed at their mass marketing, for example at the time of the holidays.
"
However, in situations where there are risks of excess, we should instead get involved in identifying and preventing excessive behavior that endangers not only the consumers themselves but also the rest of the population.
»
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“The best prevention is still abstinence”
There is therefore no reliable product to prevent the unpleasant effects the day after a binge, whether sold in pharmacies or on the internet.
"
Studies show that every year there are fraudulent publications that have only a marketing interest
", explains Professor Naassila.
The only steps to take are to limit consumption, to drink slowly, to have a full stomach, and above all to stay hydrated.
The researcher adds that we must also be careful with paracetamol "
because after a large consumption of alcohol, the liver is busy degrading the alcohol and will not degrade the paracetamol, thus increasing the risk of intoxication
".
".