Let’s face it: popular hangover cures are a dime a dozen and, if you’re anything like me, you’ve tried a few of them after a night of ethanol-fueled debauchery with a disappointing grand total of zero to no effect. It just seems that old-school hangover remedies such as extra water, a big glass of orange juice, a fat-filled meal, a cup of black coffee, electrolytes, ibuprofen, ginger ale, a cold shower and the infamous “hair of the dog” make nary a dent in a legitimately alcohol-swamped brain (although, to be fair, one fringe Chinese study investigated 57 different beverages and found that lemon and lime soda can indeed process alcohol out of your system more quickly).
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not a teetotaler, and am indeed a complete lightweight who tends to get the dials in my head spun from a couple fancy martinis or an overpour on my glass of wine, but since I’m as disenchanted as you probably are with traditional ho-hum, ineffective hangover remedies, I figured I’d put four of the more “advanced’ remedies of late to the test for you. After all, the holidays are a perfect time to use yourself as an alcohol-swigging guinea pig for the sake of science, right?
And considering my holidays consist of an alcohol-fueled personal birthday, four family birthdays, three Christmas parties, two Christmas dinners and a New Year’s Eve celebration, I figured now would be the perfect time to discover whether any of these new, fancy elixirs could rescue me from the impending sledgehammers in my skull. And so, armed with a proper excuse to get at least mildly sloshed, a handful of the latest newcomers to the hangover remedy market and a head nod to my soon-to-be-suffering liver, I set about my test.
Why You Get A Hangover
Given that they're such a widespread partying phenomenon, it's a bit surprising that scientists still don't fully understand the mechanism of a hangover (or what the labcoat-wearing nerds call veisalgia), or why, after all traces of alcohol have been fully metabolized by your body, you can still experience a headache, dizziness, fatigue, nausea, brain fog, sweating, dry mouth and the unique ability to be able to deposit the foul spawn of Satan out your backside and into any bathroom in sight.
One popular theory is that alcohol acts as a diuretic, thus increasing urine production and causing dehydration. But research has found no correlation between the hormones associated with dehydration and the severity of a hangover. Some scientists believe that a hangover is driven by alcohol interfering with the body's natural chemical balance in a more complex way. For example, one hypothesis is that to metabolize alcohol your body must convert the enzyme NAD+ into a form called NADH, and that with an excess accumulation of NADH combined with low NAD+, your cells are no longer capable of efficiently performing important metabolic functions such as glucose utilization and electrolyte balance. However, studies have shown that even in people with severe hangovers, there are not imbalances of electrolytes or glucose in their blood
A hangover may also result from an accumulation of acetaldehyde in your body. This compound can be 10 and 30 times as toxic as alcohol itself, and builds rapidly during alcohol metabolism, causing symptoms such as sweating, skin flushing, nausea, and vomiting. Sound familiar? Finally, hangovers may also be driven by immune system dysfunction, and there are indeed strong correlations between high levels of cytokines (immune system signaling molecules) hangover symptoms. Normally, the body might use cytokines to trigger a fever of inflammatory response to battle an infection, but it seems that excessive alcohol consumption can also provoke High cytokines can lead to symptoms such muscle aches, fatigue, headache or nausea, and the notorious cognitive effects you experience during a hangover, like memory loss and irritation.
Regardless of the confusion and mystery about what truly causes a hangover, one thing is true: there's no such thing as an FDA-endorsed hangover cure, and there is instead a wild-wild west of purported hangover cures.
Hangover Cure #1: Before Elixir Alcohol Detox Drink
Before Elixir Alcohol Detox Drink bills itself as a tonic for hangover prevention that provides liver support, replenishes nutrients, helps rehydrate and boost your energy with B vitamins.
The ingredients are as follows: water, sugar, acetyl-L-carnitine hydrochloride, N-acetyl L-cysteine milk thistle, hovenia dulcis, hesperidin complex, grape seed extract, magnesium lactate, R alpha-lipoic acid, kudzu root extract 40%, cyanocobalamin 0.1%, dandelion extract, pyridoxine hydrochloride, calcium-D-pantothenate, selenium amino acid complex 1%, folic acid 10%, riboflavin, thiamine mononitrate, natural flavor, monk fruit, citric acid, potassium sorbate as preservative, fruit and vegetable juice.
Instructions are to drink 1 bottle before you go out and 1 bottle before bed. In addition, anyone who experiences the notorious “alcohol flush” is instructed to consume 1 bottle 30-60 minutes before drinking (and apparently one bottle covers 3-4 drinks, depending on flushing sensitivity).
The B vitamins in Before Elixir supposedly aid in alcohol metabolism and boost energy levels, and the amino acids, milk thistle and other plant extracts are added to help the liver process, metabolize acetaldehyde and remove toxins in the body. The manufacturer even claims that if Before Elixir doesn’t prevent hangovers and alcohol flush, they’ll provide a 30-day money-back guarantee—a bold claim indeed.
I chose to slam my Before Elixir during my birthday, which I celebrated in Panama City with a “don’t mix your alcohols” rule-breaking spree of colada smoothies, tequila shots, and cheap South American wine.
Thanks most likely to the monk fruit and added fruit and vegetable juice, Before Elixir tastes like a pleasantly sweet tonic. No complaints in the taste department.
Results: As a guy who happens to have inherited an occasionally embarrassing alcohol flushing gene from my dear mother, I was pleased to witness a significant effect of Before Elixir on my propensity to look like a red-faced clown after a couple servings of booze. As promised, Before Elixir seemed to significantly reduce that propensity. On the flipside, I noticed little to no impact on hangover symptoms.
Rating: 4 of 10, with an extra point for the astounding effects on the alcohol flush.
The upside? The stuff is relatively “guilt-free," advertised as a natural liquid formula with no artificial colors, artificial sweeteners, or artificial flavors, and also vegan, non-GMO, corn-free, dairy-free, nut-free, soy-free, and gluten-free, all in a BPA-free bottle. The downside? Besides being healthy as hell and very unlikely to fill me with estrogenic-laced plastic or man-boob-bestowing soy, Before Elixir didn’t seem to produce much of a noticeable result. Or perhaps it simply couldn’t compete with my Panamanian hedonism.
Hangover Cure #2: Morning Recovery Drink
The formulation for Morning Recovery is based on an Oriental raisin tree called Hovenia Dulcis, which contains Dihydromyricetin (DHM). DHM supposedly contains anti-oxidant activity that supports the body's natural detoxification processes. Raisins for hangovers? Who knew?
Along with DHM, Morning Recovery Drink contains prickly pear extract to “help support the body's natural metabolic response," Vitamin B complex to “support the body’s natural protective enzymes," milk thistle, which contains the antioxidant silymarin, taurine which assists with lipid metabolism in the liver and electrolytes for hydration. The instructions are to drink one bottle of Morning Recovery during or after a night out (before going to sleep).
And so, on December 23rd, just two days after my birthday spree, I sucked down my Morning Recovery, curled in front of the roaring fire back home in Washington state, and set upon a bottle of champagne with my wife. The taste was a mild, sweet, raisin-ey flavor. No surprises there.
Results: Within a couple hours, I was peeing dark yellow—a surge sign of a boatload of B-vitamins in my system. But aside from the colorful effects on my urine, I didn’t notice much from Morning Recovery, although there could very likely have been a positive and helpful effect on my liver from the magical raisins.
Rating: 3 of 10.
Although I fared a bit better with Morning Recovery compared to Before Elixir, the results were still mildly disappointing. But I kept my fingers crossed and squinted through my headache at the calendar: Christmas was just one day away. As a married man with two separate families to celebrate the holiday with, along my with my own immediate family celebration, I knew it was time to hunt down the big guns.
Hangover Cure #3: Never Too Hungover
Never Too Hungover (possibly the worst product title of the bunch) is a vitamin blend that promises to “neutralize toxins, restore vital nutrients, and rehydrate the body." It contains a vitamin complex, amino acids, antioxidants, nutrients, and minerals, and is advertised as sugar-free and gluten-free, with just five calories per serving.
The ingredients of Never Too Hungover include aloe vera, which has antioxidant and antibacterial properties that may help aid the digestion and elimination of toxins, along with assisting with headache alleviation; B Vitamins to assist with alcohol metabolism; gotu kola for blood circulation; green tea extract for antioxidants and nutrients to support the liver and soothe nausea; milk thistle as for liver detoxification support and potassium for regulation of fluid balance and hydration.
This hangover remedy steps things up in terms of complexity: instructions are to consume a 3.4 oz liquid “Prevention” serving of Never Too Hungover before or while drinking, and a similarly sized “Boost” caffeinated serving of Never Too Hungover the day after drinking. Supposedly it’s a potent one-two combo. Time will tell.
Enter Christmas Eve, only twenty-four hours after battling champagne toxicity with my Morning Recovery Drink. Before heading down to Moscow, Idaho, for a wine party at the in-laws, I drank my first serving of Never Too Hungover, then set aside the other as my own personal stocking stuffer for Christmas morning, to be consumed with a touch of eggnog and rum.
It's an odd-tasting but pleasant blend of bitter, sour and sweet. This one sent my taste buds on a joyride, but that’s possibly due to the presence of the artificial sweetener sucralose, which I’m not accustomed to consuming. (I’m more of a Stevia man.)
Results: Perhaps it was a placebo effect, but I definitely felt fewer sledgehammers in my head the next morning. The absence of a distinct headache was a definite plus, but at the same time, I was still groggy, tired, low on energy much of the day and highly cognizant of the fact that my search for the ultimate hangover Holy Grail must continue. I swigged a big glass of water and steeled myself for the final hurrah.
Rating: 6 of 10. Based on the somewhat promising results, and especially compared to my first two hangover remedy attempts, I may keep a few bottles of this stuff handy for the future (despite the artificial sweeteners and colors, which make me cringe).
Hangover Cure #4: Myer’s Cocktail IV
For this last hangover cure, I decided to skip gastric absorption altogether and try a hangover cure I could mainline straight into my bloodstream. Enter the Myer’s Cocktail intravenous infusion (IV), invented over 30 years ago by John Myers, a Johns Hopkins University physician. The core of a Myer’s cocktail typically contains some mixture of vitamin C, a B-vitamin complex, and magnesium. Most medical practitioners begin with the basic Myers, then add other additives to it, including glutathione, high dose vitamin C, amino acids and minerals. The cocktail is traditionally used to help people recover from dehydration, stomach bugs, food poisoning, jet lag, and—you guessed it—hangovers. All that’s required is a vein and a few hundred bucks.
Problem is, mainstream medicine tends to decry Myer’s cocktails as simply a fancy and very expensive way of introducing a bag full of salinated “saltwater” into the body, and the only real result of such a procedure is faster rehydration after drinking. However, to test this theory, I opted for a low water volume “Push IV”, which contains just a few dozen milliliters of fluid – barely a thimbleful compared to the normal one-liter bag used in an IV.
When I spoke with Dr. Craig Koniver, who supplied me with a Push IV called a FastVitaminIV, produced by his own medical company called “Brain Refuel Therapy," he explained the ingredients of the cocktail. “We utilize the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase to break down alcohol and metabolize it so we can excrete it out of our systems. Alcohol dehydrogenase is contained in both the liver and mitochondria. In order to keep this important enzyme functioning, we need critical nutrients such as vitamin B3 to help with recycling of NAD, magnesium to help with shuttling of nutrients into the mitochondria and amino acids such as glutamine and acetyl-L-Carnitine to help both liver detoxification and mitochondrial processing of sugars. By providing these nutrients in a fast-push, we allow these nutrients to rapidly enter the cells which accelerates the rate at which these nutrients can start working on improving alcohol dehydrogenase function and liver detoxification. Hangovers are more an effect of nutrient imbalance versus dehydration so giving the nutrients in a concentrated push, this speeds up the time to help with improving hangover symptoms." Oh.
Three days after Christmas, and the morning after my final holiday party (you know, the one your neighbors throw to get rid of all the extra holiday booze), a Myer’s Cocktail from Dr. Koniver arrived at my home packed on ice in a Styrofoam case, along with a butterfly needle, tourniquet, alcohol swab and bandaid. As a self-professed biohacking guinea pig, I’m not stranger to injecting myself, so—still bleary-eyed from my Christmas party the evening before—I found an especially large vein on my left bicep, injected the entire cocktail (warning: a reckless activity I do not endorse or recommend), then sat back and waited, hunched over a piping hot cup of coffee and staring at the wall as my body slumped from the after-effects of the past week.
I actually tasted this one in my mouth, despite the active substances being mainlined into my vein. The best I can describe it is a bitter liquid multivitamin taste that fills your entire mouth, accompanied by a slightly cold sensation creeping up the arm.
Results: Nothing short of astounding. Despite alcohol still likely coursing through my veins, within just 20 minutes after the IV, I felt newfound energy surging through my system, and, within an hour, felt ready to clean my office, work on a book chapter and crush a workout.
Rating: 9 of 10, with a point docked for the inconvenience and expense.
The final verdict? All of these crazy cocktails contain such a shotgun of ingredients that it’s very difficult to say which chemical component is actually managing the hangover symptoms. So while I can’t advise you to start growing prickly pear extract in your backyard or mixing aloe vera juice into your evening cocktail, I can tell you that if you’ve got the money to burn and a medically savvy friend willing to inject you, a Myer’s cocktail is, in my opinion, your best friend to beat back a hangover.
Ben Greenfield is the author of Beyond Training: Mastering Endurance, Health & Life, a self-experimenter, biohacker, professional obstacle course racer and health coach. He blogs at BenGreenfieldFitness.com and in no way endorses self-imposed liver destruction, excessive alcohol consumption, or inappropriate hedonism.
