Health & Wellbeing

A hangover cure that works

A hangover cure that works
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May 22, 2006 The production, trade and consumption of alcohol dates beyond 10,000BC. The Sumerians, Egyptians and Babylonians produced and traded alcohol and the Romans and Ancient Greeks had wine Gods. Across the centuries, almost every culture has used alcohol medicinally, ritualistically and socially and in so doing, woven it inextricably into global society. We now consume more alcohol per person than ever before and at least 2.0 billion people drink it regularly. Which means the number of hangovers faced each day is also on the increase and why an effective hangover cure is the holy grail of “killer apps” – it is a “must have” product that no old wives tale has yet tackled successfully. As the word intoxication suggests, alcohol is actually a poison. That’s why we sometimes vomit when we drink it (to expel the poison), and why, if you drink enough of it, you will die. This new breed of hangover cure addresses the toxicity. The cure we tested and found to be remarkably effective is called Kampai, which is the Japanese equivalent to slainte, salute, prost, googy wawa (Zulu) and Cheerz, which is also the name for another clinically proven hangover cure we reported on but didn’t try. We tried Kampai and it works. We tried it every which way and it significantly reduces the after effects of a night on the town more than anything we’ve previously tried, though we invite any hangover cure peddlers to send us a box and we’ll report on them too. We think Cheerz and Kampai, or any other cures as good as they clearly are, should be stocked wherever customers are asked to “name their poison”, because now there’s an antidote, too.

It’s true – it works. One 14 sachet box of Kampai arrived in the mail, where it sat until the next dreaded hangover struck, when it suddenly became important – the sign of a good product. I ingested one satchel via a glass of water and an hour later I felt great. So good in fact, that I decided to see how much difference they could make.

Taking the sachet after the event did not prove as effective of taking it beforehand. If you prepare properly to drink alcohol, you will always suffer less. If you take a sachet of this stuff beforehand it neutralises and minimises the damage rather than repairing it.

Everyone who tried it was astounded at its effectiveness. Part of our seat-of-the-pants investigation invoved abstinence from alcohol for several weeks twice. At the end of the first one, two of us went out to a celebration after a fortnight of clean living and imbibed a social amount of alcohol. As our bodies were not accustomed to the toxicity, the hangovers were monumental. One satchel of Kampai cured both hangovers completely within half an hour.

Next time out to try the cure was around three weeks later, with again no alcohol consumed in the intervening period. We took satchels before we went out and next morning the hangovers were negligible and disappeared completely after another satchel.

Hardly conclusive, but, as we said, every single time we tried it, it worked astonishingly well. This reflects the results experienced by the results of a 2004 University of Southern California study where a placebo-controlled, double-blind, crossover study found that Cheerz was effective in 78% of participants who consumed eight drinks or more.

Kampai was developed in Japan and contains 2,800mg of alanine and glutamine. The combination of these two amino acids supports and expedites the body's metabolic processing of alcohol, while also helping to preserve the homeostatis of the liver.

"Kampai is the result of years of intensive scientific research into the benefits of alanine and glutamine supplementation," says Dr. Kunio Torii of Ajinomoto Co., Inc.'s Institute of Life Sciences. "Many business and social occasions involve some amount of drinking, especially during the holiday season. Kampai is ideal for these occasions and, even more importantly, it supports long-term healthy liver function."

A recent Japanese study in the July issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research identified acetaldehyde as the culprit behind hangovers. In June, scientists from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) reported that acetaldehyde damages DNA and can lead to cancer.

Both Cheerz and Kampai are promoting a healthy, responsible attitude to drinking though it’s hard to miss the relevance of launching Cheerz amidst the glitter of the world’s most notorious party town (Las Vegas). There’ll no doubt be a cry from some quarters that the advertising and promotion of an antidote will see even more damage done. But if it minimises the cost of doing business … it’ll at least find a market.

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