Drinking alcohol is very common, whether there is a celebratory occasion or not, whether the weather is too hot or cold, whether you are in a good mood or bad, and so on. However, we all know that drinking alcohol is not the best for your health, and excessive alcohol consumption can have a bad effect on your body, especially your liver. Alcohol also reduces the ability to concentrate and react. To combat the effects of alcohol on our bodies, researchers at ETH Zurich in Switzerland have developed a protein gel that breaks down alcohol in the gastrointestinal tract. In the future, people taking the gel could reduce the harmful and intoxicating effects of alcohol on their bodies.
How this gel works
The findings of the study were published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. This gel converts alcohol quickly, efficiently and directly into harmless acetic acid before it enters the bloodstream.
“The gel shifts the breakdown of alcohol from the liver to the digestive tract. In contrast, when alcohol is metabolised in the liver, no harmful acetaldehyde is generated as an intermediate product,” explains Professor Raffaele Mezzenga from the Food and Soft Materials Laboratory at ETH Zurich. Acetaldehyde is toxic and is responsible for many of the health problems caused by excessive alcohol consumption.
What is this gel made of?
The researchers used ordinary whey proteins to make the gel. They boiled them for several hours to form long, thin filaments. Adding salt and water as a solvent causes the filaments to clump together and a gel is formed. To break down the alcohol, the gel needs several catalysts. The researchers used individual iron atoms as the main catalyst.
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Small amounts of hydrogen peroxide are needed to activate this reaction in the intestine. These are generated by an upstream reaction between glucose and gold nanoparticles. Gold was chosen as the catalyst for hydrogen peroxide because the precious metal is not digested and therefore remains effective for a long time in the digestive tract. The researchers packaged all of these substances – iron, glucose and gold – into a gel.
Effect of the gel on mice
The researchers found that thirty minutes after a dose of alcohol, “prophylactic use of the gel reduced alcohol levels in rats by 40 percent. Five hours after alcohol consumption, their blood alcohol levels were reduced by 56 percent.” It was observed that these rats accumulated less harmful acetaldehyde, and their livers had fewer stress reactions, which was reflected in improved blood values.
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When the mice were given the gel and alcohol for ten days, the mice had lower alcohol levels and also showed lasting therapeutic effects of the gel – significant weight loss, less liver damage, better fat metabolism in the liver as well as better blood values. Their spleen, intestine and tissues also showed significantly less damage caused by alcohol.
Several clinical trials are still needed before this gel can be authorized for human use.
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