It’s the morning after the night before….
The one time when everyone let’s their hair down, and celebrates a year of successful business….
The Christmas party.
Headache thumping and hazy memory, your first instinct is to reach for the Paracetamol painkillers beside the bed to try stave off the onset of the dreaded “hangover”, which will be followed by doing absolutely nothing on the couch for the rest of the day in hopes that the Sunday night “fear” doesn’t set in.
Now what if I told you, there’s an easier and simpler solution, routed in science to preparing yourself for your festive fun whilst supporting your body’s biochemistry to meet the toxic demand alcohol places on the body?
When we ingest alcohol, there are 2 important enzymes which break it down - alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH).
Ever wonder why some people have a large tolerance to alcohol and just never seem to get drunk or have hangovers? They have very efficient ADH and ALDH enzymes to thank for.
Acetaldehyde, which is the metabolic product of ethyl alcohol is thought to have correlations to hangover symptoms (headache, dehydration etc.) and is what damages the liver through alcohol consumption.
Glutathione which is a tri-peptide of 3 amino acids (glutamic acid, cysteine and glycine) plays an important role in liver detoxification, also known as the body’s “master” antioxidant. Technically, it conjugates to toxins using the enzyme glutathione-S-transferase (GST) to allow them to be eliminated in the urine.
Glutathione (GSH) plays an important role in the detoxification of ethanol (alcohol) and acute alcohol consumption leads to Glutathione depletion in the liver and other tissues (PMID 1930162).
When Glutathione levels are enhanced by supplementing with Glutathione or its precursors (N-Acetyl Cysteine), the depletion of Glutathione levels by Ethanol (Alcohol) are prevented and toxicity is diminished.
With Glutathione supplementation, the body has support to eliminate excessive amounts of Acetaldehyde formed from alcohol ingestion which might prevent hangover symptoms.
As an aside, Paracetamol also requires Glutathione to be detoxed from the body; with 1g (2 capsules) depleting close to 90% of Glutathione stores (PMID 12911681) – so you can see how adding paracetamol into the mix is only going to make the situation worse….
Not to mention Paracetamol depletes Glutathione as it makes a toxic metabolite known as NAPQI (N-acetyl-p-benzoquinone imine) which the liver makes more of when alcohol is present in the body…..double whammy…..
At Supplement Needs (based in Poole, UK), we formulated a Glutathione supplement which utilises the best delivery method – Liposomes.
Most oral Glutathione supplements are relatively useless, as being a tri-peptide, Glutathione just gets broken down in the acidic environment of the stomach.
By placing Glutathione inside a tiny nano sized fat molecule (Liposome), it can easily survive the stomach into the small intestine to enter circulation, where it can penetrate the fatty membrane that protects your cells to deliver the Glutathione directly into your cells – we call this an improved in oral bioavailability with Liposomal Glutathione having an almost equivalent bioavailability to injectable.
Another useful strategy for Glutathione supplementation is acetylation. This protects the Glutathione molecule with an acetyl group so it can pass through the stomach into the gut for absorption – this is the key strategy to Glutathione delivery and enhanced nitric oxide production used in our vasodilating non-stim pre-workout PRE Pump+ (so not only will you have a killer pump before your night out, you’ll be rest assured that the Acetyl-S-Glutathione is supporting your Glutathione levels).
Seems like a no-brainer to ensure your Glutathione levels are supported before heading out right?
The other aspect is dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. Alcohol causes the body to increase urinary output (i.e., it is a diuretic). The consumption of approximately 4 drinks causes the elimination of 600 to 1,000 mL of water over several hours (PMID 15706734). Add on top of this sweating and vomiting (which are often far too common on a night out); creates the conditions for electrolyte imbalance and dehydration.
However, drinking water doesn’t necessarily mean you are hydrating your body. Technically, you require Electrolytes (Sodium, Potassium, Magnesium, Calcium) in order for water to move inside and out of your cells. Electrolyte+ was specifically designed to help support hydration goals, which before/during/after a night of alcohol ingestion is critically important to offsetting some of the physical hangover symptoms such as headache etc.
So with that all in mind, and the fancy science, we arrive at The Hangover Solution; a stack of Liposomal Glutathione and Electrolyte+ designed to be utilised over the festive holiday season to try at least offset some of the self-induced hangover damage (although I can’t guarantee anything against the damage done by embarrassing yourself in front of the boss….)
P.S. The Liver can only produce the enzyme Alcohol Dehydrogenase at an average rate for Alcohol to leave the body of 0.015 g/100mL/hour, which is the same as reducing your BAC level by 0.015 per hour.
For men, this is usually a rate of about one standard drink per hour.
Nothing can increase this rate of detoxification (unless genetic), but supplementation with Glutathione can offset some of the cellular damage.
Bare this in mind the morning following alcohol ingestion.
Dr Dean St. Mart PhD; Product Manager and Formulator for Supplement Needs