Thread: Oxygen-enriched booze makes for less-intense hangover

New research shows that ingesting oxygen-enriched alcoholic beverages can help the body metabolize them faster than normal drinks, without affecting how well or quickly the body absorbs the drink in the first place. While the process might produce a less-intense hangover, oxygenated drinks that dissipate more rapidly won't exactly help customers get their money's worth.

Three oxygen molecules are used to metabolize each unit of alcohol into water and carbon dioxide, and the body obtains oxygen from three sources: the skin, the lungs, and the stomach. Oxygen sourced from the stomach is used most intensively of the three, particularly for alcohol metabolization: breathing can increase the oxygen in the liver up to 8 percent, while oxygen from the stomach can increase it as much as 43 percent (Translation: taking a few deep breaths so you can drive home from the bar is not terribly effective).

Given this difference, scientists figured they could introduce more oxygen to the stomach along with alcohol, and the body should metabolize the alcohol faster. To test their idea, 49 volunteers were fed sets of equally alcoholic drinks, with one group drinking beverages that had been oxygen-enriched up to 20-25 parts per million, and the control group drinking beverages with oxygen at 8 ppm. They found that the oxygenated drinks were absorbed as fast as the regular drinks, and got the participants just as drunk. But, when testing their blood alcohol levels, researchers found that the oxygenation helped the volunteers scrub alcohol from their systems, getting them down to a 0.05 percent BAC about half an hour faster.

The utility of oxygenating drinks from the customer point of view remains unclear (unless quick and efficient nights of partying or micro-binges at lunch become popular). Maybe all the oxygen bars that have been sitting in disuse since the late 90s will find themselves in the spotlight again when club owners combine them with beverages to produce a new, "safer" drink. However, until hangovers can be isolated and eliminated, regular alcohol will probably remain popular.

Oxygen-enriched booze makes for less-intense hangover

You going to start decanting beer next to oxygenate it even further and then tell me its better??

Your buddy Nismo even told you that when you're half way through a bottle it's different due to the alcohol fumes having dissipated.

My Dad, being Scotish, thought my surprise that it makes a difference was hilarious. He told me that virtually no whisky lovers he knows in Scotland opens a fresh bottle and drinks it immediately. They don't decant it, but they do let it sit.

I might draw the line at beer, as it's carbonated. Need the bubblies!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If you oxygenate beer you'll increase the free radical content and destroy the flavor. Thus the ever increasing battle to carbonate the beer better than the next competitor.

I played a free radical in Red Faction Guerilla; it was pretty cool.
I didn't destroy many 'flavours', but I destroyed lots of buildings