Hangover Helpers?

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Whether it’s pickle juice, raw cabbage, persimmons, or grilled cheese, everyone seems to have a favored technique for handling the headache, nausea, and malaise that follows a night of heavy drinking.


But what about the dozens of products that promise to “expedite” the body’s ability to metabolize alcohol and reduce the aftereffects of too many martinis? While these products may seem like they belong in the convenience store on a college campus, their presence in pharmacies and vitamin stores in the city has become more overt. But do they work?


The products – some of which have been on the shelves for several years, like RU-21, and others that are debuting this month, like the Japanese product Kampai – rely on a host of ingredients, supplements, and natural extracts.


The plum-flavored Kampai, for example, comes in small packets filled with a white powder that looks like confectioners sugar. The product contains 2,800 milligrams of alanine and glutamine, amino acids that the company says helps to metabolize alcohol.


As recently as last Friday, however, researchers reported in the British Medical Journal, that there is “no compelling evidence” that there are any cures for a hangover. Though the trial was too small to draw any real conclusions, researchers found dozens of hangover cures on the Internet that made lofty claims, but didn’t do much to relieve symptoms.


The director of the Addiction Institute of New York at St. Luke’s and Roosevelt Hospitals, Petros Levounis, doesn’t buy the promises, either. He said most of the anti-hangover products on the market are probably not harmful, but that they won’t “make much of a difference.”


“They might make a small difference, but no more than a glass of orange juice or water would,” Dr. Levounis said. “A lot of these products are actually taken with water or juice,” so it’s hard to tell whether it’s the product or the beverage at work.


In his new book due out in early January, “The Healthy Guide to Unhealthy Living,” David Clayton says loading up on carbohydrates and fatty foods before drinking is a good idea. Also, rotating in nonalcoholic beverages to pace yourself is a good trick for making sure you don’t consume more alcohol than you can handle, Dr. Clayton writes.


According to Dr. Levounis, the sad fact is that nothing fully eliminates the aftereffects of alcohol. He points out that no product has been proven to mollify the long-term effects of alcohol on the liver and the rest of the body.


“The no. 1 recommendation is obviously to drink less,”he said.”But if you’re going to drink: hydration, hydration, hydration. You must keep hydrated and not just with water, but with things that have electrolytes in them, like orange juice or lemonade.”


A recent survey in the now-defunct Radar magazine of over-the-counter anti-hangover remedies – including Rebound, Chaser Plus, Sober X, RU-21, and a prickly pear extract called Opuntia – had disappointing results.


After testing seven products, Radar reporter-Derek De Koff concluded that good old Alka-Seltzer (which, needless to say, is taken with a tall glass of water) was the only product that actually worked.


A marketing manager at Ajinomoto, the company that manufactures Kampai, Keiko Tokuda, said the Japanese product, which does claim to help liver health, was not intended to solve serious physical ailments associated with alcohol.


“We’re certainly not saying that it helps kick your addiction, or that you can drink more as a result,” she said.


Kampai was originally launched in Japan, where it was targeted to businessmen who are all-but required to go out drinking with their colleagues after a day at the office. Ms. Tokuda said the supplement was ideal for the social drinker or for someone making the rounds at work-related holiday parties.


A bartender at Angry Wade’s on Smith Street in Brooklyn, Rosie Goodman, has her own remedy. “The best thing is just having the same thing you had the night before, if you can stomach it,” she said. “The hair of the dog, to me, is the best remedy.”


On a typical Sunday afternoon at the bar, she’ll make at least four large pitchers of Bloody Mary. And if it’s a weekday and she has to be at her daytime job doing video production, she’ll have the only real solution: a tall bottle of water.


The New York Sun

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