Korean scientists discover how to make booze that gives you less hangover

Just what Korea needs: more incentive to drink. As if the drinking capital of the world wasn't imbibing enough, Korean scientists discovered a way to cut down on the hangover by helping the body metabolize alcohol.

According to Sky News, "the dreaded morning-after feeling could be a thing of the past after scientists in Korea came up with a technique that allows drinkers to avoid a hangover.

"A team of researchers in South Korea added extra oxygen to drinks and found that the body was then able to metabolise the booze quicker and eliminate the alcohol quicker - cutting down the after effects."

Tests were conducted using different amounts of oxygen added drinks. The results, ironically documented in the journal, Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, showed that those who consumed drinks with higher concentrations of oxygen recovered faster.

"Elevated dissolved oxygen concentrations in alcoholic drinks accelerate the metabolism and elimination of alcohol," researchers In-hwan Baek, Byung-yo Lee and Kwang-il Kwon of Chungnam National University's College of Pharmacy said.

"Thus, enhanced dissolved oxygen concentrations in alcohol may have a role to play in reducing alcohol-related side effects and accidents," the team added.

The folks at io9.com seem to have been on top of this story a long time ago and they explain why adding O2 to alcohol lessens its after effects:

"When you drink ethanol, you body needs to oxidize it to water and carbon dioxide in order to process it. This occurs via hepatic oxidation, where the liver does its thing to counteract the liquor you've just poured down your gullet. The enzymes that process alcohol require oxygen to function, and it's thought that by storing the oxygen in the alcohol itself, the system functions more quickly and efficiently."

From the same site, one of the researchers, Kwang-il Kwon, further explains saying:

"The oxygen-enriched alcohol beverage reduces plasma alcohol concentrations faster than a normal dissolved-oxygen alcohol beverage does. This could provide both clinical and real-life significance. The oxygen-enriched alcohol beverage would allow individuals to become sober faster, and reduce the side effects of acetaldehyde without a significant difference in alcohol's effects. Furthermore, the reduced time to a lower BAC may reduce alcohol-related accidents. It seems that these drinks can maintain a high dissolved-oxygen concentration for about 10 to 20 days before the stopper is removed, and for 70 minutes after removing the stopper, respectively, at room temperature."

Of course, there's a downside to the magic elixir: the buzz from the oxygenated alcohol is more shortlived. Hence, you'll have to drink more to sustain the buzz. But that seems to be an easily solvable problem. Just save the oxygenated drink for the end of the party.

A Korean company, Sunyang, is also making an oxygenated soju drink called O2 Linn, a drink they claim will help "clarify your brain, energize your body cells, and maintain healthy and resilient skin". But from our point of view, that hardly seems credible. (But who knows?)

And whether oxygenated alcohol will also be easier on the liver, we unfortunately don't know.