Don't Expect Miracles From Buzzy Hangover 'Cures'

If you're suddenly seeing a lot of ads pushing "science-based" hangover pills, you're not alone. They've caught the attention of New Yorker writer Shayla Love, who, on the one hand, has a "strong aversion to the science-y veneer of supplement marketing," and, on the other, likes to drink. Love dives into a barrage of new supplements that claim to mop up acetaldehyde, a toxic byproduct of alcohol, and finds the science to be murky. Yes, acetaldehyde is nasty and linked to flushing and nausea, but in people with typical alcohol metabolism, there's no evidence that acetaldehyde levels are tied to how awful you feel the next morning. One factor in the murkiness: Scientists are surprisingly uncertain about what exactly causes hangovers. Dehydration, methanol, and immune and inflammatory responses may all play a role, but the picture remains fuzzy.

Another wild card: Some research suggests that spikes in acetaldehyde seem to nudge people to stop drinking, meaning that blocking it could conceivably encourage more drinking. Meanwhile, some buzzy ingredients, like the plant compound DHM, look intriguing in mice and are being studied as possible treatments for alcohol-use disorder—not brunch-saving cures. The Instagram versions haven't been clinically tested in humans, are sold as lightly regulated supplements, and may barely get absorbed by the body. Love road-tests a couple herself and was not blown away. "I felt lousy in proportion to how much I'd drunk," she writes. "Maybe no supplement was capable of changing that." For the ethics, biology, and philosophy of whether we should even want to dodge hangovers, read the full story.