Downing Flaming Sambuca shots at last call may seem like a good idea at the time, but come sunrise your body most likely won’t be thanking you for it. A new wave of pre-drink supplements promises to combat this, however, and lighten the burden of the dreaded hangover.
Just as it began to look a lot like Christmas, WIRED grabbed the chance to update our anti-hangover supplements feature. Since we first tested these products that claim to ease your head when you’ve had one too many, we’ve discovered a host of new products to try. Aiming to ease the effects of an excessive night of food and alcohol, these supplements include ingredients supposedly designed to break down alcohol in the gut before it reaches the liver or boost your body’s defenses with essential vitamins and minerals. In turn, so the claims go, this can help to eliminate (or at least drastically reduce) headaches, upset stomach, and nausea post-partying.
While small independent studies have been conducted to test the validity of these supplements, proof that they actually work as a hangover preventative is an area that remains to be satisfactorily explored. However, this hasn’t stopped brands from launching these supplements that tap into the “one too many” market. “The theory behind these supplements is that they work to lower your blood alcohol level and support your body with vitamins, reducing the chances of a worse hangover,” says Nadja Auerbach, clinical operations associate at Thriva. “The active ingredients in these popular pills include things such as the amino acid L-cysteine, vitamin B12, and two probiotics, or healthy bacteria, Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus coagulans.”
“Because they are classed as supplements and not medications, the studies to support their efficacy is limited,” says Auerbach. “There is the risk that people will use these pills as an excuse to consume even more alcohol in one sitting and not suffer the consequences, giving rise to worsened binge drinking. Eating a nutritious, balanced meal prior to drinking will support your body in dealing with the toxic effects of alcohol as best it can, however. While there are no miracle foods, eating a hearty meal balanced in protein, healthy fats, and complex carbohydrates will slow down the rate at which your body absorbs alcohol, reducing the negative effects.”
So on a cold and frosty Saturday night in December—with a crate of beer in one hand and a box of anti-hangover supplements in the other—we returned to the Wimborne Rugby Football Club where the annual Christmas party night was in full swing. In the true spirit of our (not so scientific) test, we again asked a handful of lads at the party to try some of the latest anti-hangover supplements and report back their findings—we wanted to know if they felt awful the next morning or if the supplements may have had a job in lightening any negative effects of the previous night’s alcohol.
Keen to know more about the ingredients inside each supplement and how effective they may be, we also asked Tim Gray, the UK’s leading biohacker and founder of the Health Optimisation Summit, for his feedback on each product. “To prevent a hangover, the best thing to do is avoid alcohol altogether, but if you do have a drink, it’s important to remember that dehydration is the number one cause of hangover headaches,” says Gray. “Taking supplements is great to help support the liver, but if you’re not hydrating properly and you’re drinking sugary, alcoholic drinks, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get a hangover anyway. So the best way is to choose your alcohol wisely, stay hydrated, and use the supplements to help reduce the burden on your liver.”
We wanted to see whether we could notice any beneficial effects of these miracle tablets. And the only obvious way was to test them in a real-life situation. We tagged along on Wimborne's Christmas party night out and plied willing volunteers with a selection of different booze-busting options, keen to see whether they could, in fact, minimize the effects of an excessive night of food and alcoholic beverages.
We included a range of “anti-hangover” supplements in our admittedly unscientific experiment, and asked members of the rugby team to each give a different one a try. Without lab equipment at our disposal, we tried to be as fair as possible and chose eight players from the team who all considered themselves to have a similar drinking tolerance.
Five participants took a different supplement brand before the evening got underway. We asked another participant to simply consume a diluted sachet of Dioralyte before bed, which (as urban legend has it) is supposedly excellent at hydrating you while you slumber to tackle a hangover. We asked another member to drink only plain water before bed, and a final participant to have nil-by-mouth, no preventative measures whatsoever, at the end of the night.
WIRED was on hand to ensure our panel all drank the same amount throughout the evening, toasting “To science!” with every drink. Each participant had a couple of slices of pizza and consumed an identical mix of drinks, from wine, beer, and cocktails, to Sambuca shots (which turned out to be the most popular order of the night).
We asked our testers to take the supplements as instructed on the box and drink and eat the same over the course of the evening so, once again, a mix of beer, wine, and cocktails was the order of the night. We also asked the lads to make use of the AlcoSense Elite 3 Breathalyzer at the end of the night to check that they were indeed suitably drunk.
Below we’ve highlighted how effective the ingredients are in the different products we tried, how best to consume them, and asked the rugby team to report back on how well they thought the supplements did at curbing a hangover.
Instructions: Take two capsules two hours before consuming an alcoholic drink.
Myrkl contains a patented AB001 formula made of bacteria and L-cysteine. Vegan-friendly, it includes vitamin B12 to “help combat tiredness and fatigue.” An independent peer-reviewed study conducted on a small scale has shown that the AB001 found in Myrkl managed to break down up to 70 percent of alcohol within 60 minutes after consumption. With this in mind, we were keen to see how well it fared on our rugby player.
Den Champ, who took the supplement before our night out, certainly seemed the perkiest member of our experiment the morning after. “Even by my excessive standards, the power drinking that we indulged in was at a strong pace,” says Champ. “I had the Myrkl, which was exactly that. I didn’t have a headache the next day, and the tiredness I experienced was probably down to staying up too late—all in the name of science, though.”
Maite Brines von Melle, biohacker and holistic health coach at Superhealth Playbook, was interested to see a certain bacteria in the ingredients, which she notes makes it different to other “hangover supplements” she’s seen. “It’s not just the liver, but your gut lining that also gets affected by alcohol, so including ingredients to combat this can only be a plus,” she says. “But there are a couple of anti-caking agents included in the formula that I personally wouldn’t want to see in a ‘health’ supplement.”
$35/£30 for 30 capsules (15 doses)
Instructions: Take three capsules daily with water.
Marketed as a master antioxidant formula, BioStack Labs Cell Shield is designed to support your overall daily well-being. Inside each capsule, you’ll find glutathione to “support the liver in breaking down alcohol by-products and reducing oxidative stress.” Liposomal Vitamin C and chlorella are also included to create a formula that can be taken every day to supplement your health or before and after a night out to help the body detoxify alcohol. Rugby lad Harry took three capsules with a glass of water before drinking and took another three in the morning to top up his antioxidant levels and noticed the positive effects it had on his stomach and overall health the next day. “I felt better than I normally would and didn’t have a hangover or that horrid tingly feeling you can sometimes get with a hangover,” he says. “I was able to be a bit more motivated the next day too and would be keen to take this every day as a way to boost my health.”
Tim Gray is equally positive about this one. “This product stands out as my personal favorite,” he says. “The supplements are great for cell regeneration, very supporting, and probably the cleanest brand I’ve come across as they contain no fillers or binders.”
$55 for a bottle of 90 capsules
Instructions: Take two capsules at least an hour before having your first alcoholic drink.
LVDY is a glutathione and NAC-based supplement, and these antioxidants are already used by your body to fight the toxins from your system. LVDY is designed to be taken daily to “help support your body’s metabolic function,” but can also be taken before a night out drinking. Rugby lad Jay took two capsules one hour before drinking. “I can’t say for sure if it had any effect on how I felt the next day, but one noticeable difference compared to similar nights out is that I didn’t have a headache the next day,” he notes, “and that’s always a plus. Using the breathalyzer at the end of the night was quite a positive awareness lesson for quite a few of us too—especially for those who thought they’d only had a few beers.”
Tim Gray was impressed by the antioxidants used inside this supplement. “The full ingredient list isn’t published on the website, but it would be important to look for anti-caking ingredients, including titanium dioxide and silicone dioxide which I think should be avoided,” he says.
£25 for a bottle of 20 capsules
Instructions: Take one to three bottles over the course of the night and morning as needed.
De-liver-ance promises to “maintain liver health, increase mental clarity, aid better sleep and improve your skin,” which is a tall order for a plant extract formula. It includes a blend of herbs, roots, and extracts that claim to start working within minutes to “reduce the negative effects of toxins in the body.” You can take one shot daily or simply use it when you’re planning to drink. Up to three shots can be taken daily, so if you’re having a particularly heavy night you can take one shot 30 minutes before, one shot at the end of the night, and one in the morning.
Kieron, who coaches at the Wimborne Rugby Football Club, took one shot 30 minutes before drinking. He told us that it “doesn’t look and taste pleasant, which is why I think they encourage a big glass of water immediately afterward. But it went down with no issues. I had a good bit to drink, but I actually felt quite hydrated in the morning.”
And our expert Tim Gray says: "I’m a fan of De-liver-ance as the product contains some really interesting ingredients—purified spring water (not just any water), 100% organic raw Mesquite honey which is a really special type of honey, and a great probiotic, turmeric, and astragalus. I think this combination will help support the liver to carry out detoxification processes effectively."
£24 for a 3 bottle pack
“The vitamin for when you drink,” No Days Wasted includes a mix of thiamine, niacin, sodium, and potassium that is designed to be taken when celebrating “to help you wake up feeling fresh.” You can take it with water while drinking or before bed. This year we went back to rugby lad Nathan to try out No Days Wasted (last year he took absolutely nothing before drinking and no water before bed either, see below). “I’m not entirely sure if it helped, but this year I was conscious to drink more water in between drinking, and I definitely didn’t feel too bad in the morning,” he says.
Tim Gray wasn’t so keen. “I would say this is a mediocre supplement, as it has fillers including cyanocobalamin (an inactive form of B12) that doesn’t tend to have any positive effects, whereas it should have methylcobalamin, which is the active form of B12,” says Gray. “It does, however, have dihydromyricetin in, which has been shown to work for hangovers in some cases. The ultimate benefit, and I agree with Nathan, is that it makes you focus on hydrating better—as dehydration is the biggest reason people get hangovers (the second reason is that the alcohol is toxic to the liver and digestive system).”
$34/£28 for a 10-pack box
Instructions: Take two capsules after every four alcoholic drinks consumed, followed by two capsules before bed.
You can buy Survivor in packs of 10 capsules, as a “party pack” containing 10 sachets with four capsules in each sachet, or on monthly subscription. It is designed to supposedly accelerate the breakdown of alcohol’s most toxic byproduct, acetaldehyde, which can cause inflammation, headaches, nausea, and the like. The brand website states that the capsules contain both Ampelopsis grossedentata (a source of vine tea extract) and the flower of Pueraria lobata, a traditional remedy. It claims to boost the function of ALDH, the enzyme responsible for breaking down acetaldehyde.
We asked rugby player Dan White to try Survivor on our night out, then report back the next day. “I think it’s quite funny that on the packet it tells you to ‘avoid cheap, dark-colored rum, or sickly sweet wine stuffed with sulfites, and veer toward clearer, dry drinks’—so it’s a good job Sambuca was on the menu,” says Dan.
“I had to take two Survivor capsules after every four drinks, and then two before bed. You also can’t take more than 10 capsules over a 24-hour period, so it’s really limiting you to eight drinks max. We ended up getting through more than 10 drinks on our night out, so in all honesty things got a little hazy toward the end. Surprisingly, I didn’t have a headache the next day, but I did have a very dry mouth, and didn’t feel great overall.”
Brines Von Melle points out that this supplement contains choline, which is found in foods such as eggs and is good for the liver. “I like this combination as it contains a good vitamin B complex, ingredients designed to help the nervous system, and, in particular, chromium, which helps with blood sugar management.”
$15.38/£12.74 for five 10-capsule packs
Instructions: Take one liquid sachet at the start of your evening, or two if you’re planning “a very heavy night.”
This “pre-alcohol vitamin and botanical liquid sachet” is apparently inspired by traditional Korean remedies. The fruit-flavored liquid food supplement can simply be consumed from the sachet before you start drinking. We asked rugby player Lawesy to take two and report back.
“The liquid tastes a little sickly sweet, but is generally pleasant to drink,” he says. “The next day I initially felt OK and thought that perhaps the supplement was really helping. But after being awake for an hour or so I felt as hungover as usual, with a cracking headache and zero appetite. I think this is perhaps a good supplement to take if you’re having a couple of drinks and want to feel fresh the next day, but not if you’re planning to have more.”
Brines Von Melle is impressed at how clean the combination of ingredients included in this supplement is. “Vitamin C, milk thistle, and prickly pear are all going to help after a night out,” she says.
$4.80/£3.95 per sachet, $23/£18.95 for a pack of 5
Instructions: Take one sachet in 300-ml of water after drinking, and repeat with one sachet in 300-ml of water in the morning.
This nutritional supplement is marketed as being suitable for both after-sport and after-party. It contains a mix of electrolytes, amino acids, vitamins, basic salts, phosphatidylserine, betaine, choline, zinc, selenium, fructose, and glucose.
We asked rugby player Jay “Corky” to try this product and tell us what he thought. As it turns out, Jay was impressed with this mix after a night on the tiles. “We drank a lot more than usual on our Christmas bash, and I was expecting to wake up feeling awful, but I felt surprisingly OK,” he says. “I had a slight headache, and felt a twinge of nausea when I first woke. But as the day progressed I felt fine. However, I definitely think having the 300 ml of water with the supplement helps both before bed and in the morning to hydrate the body.”
While Brines von Melle thought the choline, salts, and electrolytes were a good mix, she was not so impressed at how much fructose was included here. “While there is good stuff such as magnesium, calcium, and choline in this supplement, there is also 40 percent fructose listed in the main ingredients, which isn’t so good for blood-sugar levels.”
$24/£20 for six sachets
Instructions: Take one color-coded capsule before, at the end of the night, and again in the morning.
Championed by English actress and female biohacker Davinia Taylor, Rise & Shine by Will Powders is an indulgence recovery aid. You take the capsules before, during, and after a night out. The capsules supposedly work together with ingredients that claim to protect your liver, help your blood sugar levels, and increase the oxygen in your bloodstream.
We asked rugby player Will “Pingu” to take this supplement on our night out. The first blue pill claims to “help maintain and protect your liver from excessive use of inflammatory foods, drinks, and stress.” The second pink capsule taken at the end of the night is an antioxidant allegedly designed to maintain blood-sugar levels, while the final yellow pill is (in theory) there to increase oxygen and improve alertness.
“I don’t remember much and felt pretty awful the next day if I’m honest,” says Will. “If it’s a particularly big night out you have to remember to take the pink capsule before bed, which I would find a bit of a chore. I think having something like this makes you more aware of what you’re consuming, and for that reason alone I think it’s a positive.”
“There are a lot of ingredients in these capsules to help protect your body from excess alcohol, including milk thistle, choline, and vitamin B6,” says Brines von Melle. “It’s a great formula, and my only hesitation as a purist is that I am not the biggest fan of anti-caking agents found in some health supplements.”
$15.75/£12.99 for a pack
Nathan Steele, who had absolutely nothing before bed, not even a sip of water, reported somewhat predictably that he felt “utterly awful” the next day. Meanwhile, Trevor “Smax,” who was allowed water before bed, told us that he “needed to drink a lot of water pre-bed, and again in the morning, to feel like he was suitably hydrated.”
Lastly, Leo, who took a sachet of Dioralyte rehydration salts before bed, said that in the morning he felt he “needed a lot more than a glass of electrolytes to help tackle a hangover like this.”
There are, of course, a vast range of factors—such as age, body mass, ethnicity, biological sex, and even your DNA—that impact the way people metabolize alcohol, and consequently experience a hangover—which in turn impacts the effectiveness of these pills and potions. With this in mind, WIRED freely admits we had a bit (OK, a great deal) of fun conducting our “anti-hangover” experiment, so we’ll hold our hands up and admit these results are very much subjective and can in no way be judged scientifically. We’d also like to underline that, unless you want to end up feeling as bad as Smax, Leo, and Will, you should always drink responsibly.
Brines von Melle offers up some basic tools to hopefully help the body with alcohol consumption:
1. The gut takes as much bashing as the liver, so on the day of have plenty of fiber in cruciferous vegetables and fermented foods. Eggs, in particular, are great for extra choline, as your liver will use choline stores to mitigate the damage of drinking alcohol.
2. Antioxidants and extra antioxidants are important to help mop up the free radicals released when drinking alcohol. This could be extra vitamin C (1,000 mg), glutathione, or even Chaga mushroom extract.
3. Take 300 to 400 mg of magnesium, as alcohol depletes magnesium. Magnesium is found in dark chocolate, lentils, peanuts, cashews, and more.
4. Take collagen and/or bone broth. Gycine is an amino acid found in bone broth and helps to reduce lipid peroxidation and antioxidant depletion in the liver. To help with recovery, both chlorella and milk thistle are also good.
5. To fight fatigue and help with stress on the body (and nervous system), use vitamin B12 or a whole vitamin B complex.
6. Remember that alcohol dehydrates the body, so try to drink one glass of water with each unit of alcohol. It’s useful to add a pinch of quality sea salt to your water to stay hydrated, which is an easy way to keep up your electrolytes.
Disclosure: Maite Brines von Melle of Superhealth Playbook who commented on each product in this article when it was first published in 2022 is now affiliated with BioStack Labs, which is why we didn’t ask her to comment on this particular brand.
