iStockphoto
Would you like to have a beer or two, or a glass or three of wine, and not suffer the nasty aftereffects of drinking alcohol?
Well, researchers at ETH Zurich in Switzerland have developed a new edible gel that they say will reduce blood alcohol levels by up to 50 percent and protect the body from the damage caused by drinking.
According to the scientists’ study, published Monday in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, the gel is made from whey protein fibrils that convert alcohol in the intestine into harmless acetic acid before it can enter the bloodstream.
“The gel shifts the breakdown of alcohol from the liver to the digestive tract. In contrast to when alcohol is metabolised in the liver, no harmful acetaldehyde is produced as an intermediate product,” explained Professor Raffaele Mezzenga from the Laboratory of Food & Soft Materials at ETH Zurich.
Now, why would anyone want to drink alcohol without getting tipsy?
“These days, the consequences of this are undisputed: even small amounts of alcohol impair people’s ability to concentrate and to react, increasing the risk of accidents,” the researchers state. “Drinking large quantities on a regular basis is detrimental to one’s health: common consequences include liver disease, inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract and cancer. According to the World Health Organization, around 3 million people die every year from excessive alcohol consumption.”
The scientists also say that in the future, the edible gel “could be taken orally before or during alcohol consumption to prevent blood alcohol levels from rising and acetaldehyde from damaging the body.”
So far they have only tested the edible gel on mice, but they are so confident that it will also work in humans that they have already applied to patent the gel.
They write, “The mice that were given the gel daily in addition to alcohol showed significantly less weight loss, less liver damage and hence better fat metabolism in the liver as well as better blood values. Other organs in the mice, such as the spleen or the intestine, as well as their tissues also showed much less damage caused by alcohol.”
Mezzenga added, “It’s healthier not to drink alcohol at all. However, the gel could be of particular interest to people who don’t want to give up alcohol completely, but don’t want to put a strain on their bodies and aren’t actively seeking the effects of alcohol.”