This article is well worth reading...I'm not sure what's more amazing, that this drug keeps these rats from becoming so intoxicated, or that the rats
where given the equivalent of 15 to 20 beers in under two hours. That's alot of alcohol.
Rodents get less drunk, recover faster and appear less prone to alcohol addiction
www.sciencenews.org...
Rats dosed with a compound isolated from an ancient herbal remedy appear all but impervious to quantities of alcohol that put their compatriots
under the table. Rodents on the drug can drink large quantities of alcohol without passing out, show fewer signs of hangover and even fail to become
addicted to alcohol after weeks of drinking, researchers report in the Jan. 4 Journal of Neuroscience.
If the compound proves to have similar effects in humans, it may offer a powerful way to combat alcohol’s dizzying effects, the dreaded hangover and
even alcohol dependence. “I think it’s really pretty incredible that one study opens up avenues for so many angles,” says neuroscientist A.
Leslie Morrow of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill.
In the new study, Liang and her team tested one ingredient of Hovenia called dihydromyricetin, or DHM, on rats, which respond to alcohol in
similar ways to humans. After rats were given the human equivalent of 15 to 20 beers in under two hours, the animals passed out in a drunken stupor
and lost the reflex to flip over when placed on their backs. The rats took about an hour after this binge to begin to regain control of their bodies
and flip themselves over.
But when the rats received a shot of DHM along with their alcohol, they tolerated the booze better. These rats still lost the ability to flip
themselves over, but the stupor took longer to take hold and lasted only about 15 minutes.
DHM had benefits beyond the inebriated period, too. A dose of the compound helped ease rat hangover symptoms two days after an alcohol binge by
curbing anxiety and susceptibility to seizures.
The standout result, says Steven Paul of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, is that DHM also curbed alcohol consumption. Rats allowed to
drink alcohol gradually start consuming more of it. But rats that drank DHM-laced alcohol didn’t increase their consumption, the team found.
“When you drink alcohol with DHM, you never become addicted,” Liang says.
If this drug has the same effect on humans, you'll be seeing alot more information coming out about this.
.....I bet a few of you out there wished you had some of this stuff on New Years morning!
technology-info.com...
www.democraticunderground.com...edit on 5-1-2012 by isyeye because: (no reason given)