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Real-World Synthehol In Development
Ada_Rules writes "Researchers at the Imperial College London have announced development of an alcohol substitute that has many of the same properties as the Synthehol from the series Star Trek, in that one will get a buzz from it but will not end up with a hangover. In addition you will have the option of getting immediately sober if you so desire it. Let's hope this is not the typical vaporware. It is not that I really want a drink of Synthehol, but with its release I assume Romulan Ale won't be far behind."
you will have the option of getting immediately sober if you so desire it
Can I get drunk again later that night?
I was always under the impression that taking paracetamol and other similar drugs along with alcohol was rather unhealthy to the liver and whatnot...
Drinking lots of water is always good though!
ìì!
Having the option of getting immediately sober is rather missing the point of drinking alcohol ... it is the assured descent into a carefree state with no possibility of reversal that is one of the last few pleasures left in life. ... the perfect end to a usually cold, wet and crappy day in the so-called western-civilisation.
Throwing the car keys onto the dining table, pulling a bottle of vodka from the freezer and taking a few shots
You are correct. Paracetamol which is better known as Tylenol, metabolises into N-acetyl-p-benzoquinoneimine which is what actually damages the Liver.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
So if some drunk is being obnoxious at the bar you can now slip the antidote in his drink?
Let's read between the lines here...
From TFA:
In this one sentence we see: (a), an appeal to the neo-prohibitionist/nanny-stater lobby to spin this story into a positive, and (b), because you can't make this stuff at home, a pharmaceutical company is going to get a cut. Alcohol's easy to make - take some yeast and just about any form of sugar (or starch that can be converted via enzymatic action into sugar) - and you've got yourself the foundations of beer, wine, and distilled spirits. Synthetic valium, not so much.
Net effect here is that we all wind up hooked on benzos as depressants, rather than alcohol. Hey, that's fine if valium's his depressant of choice, but it's not one of mine. What's next, a move to replace the caffeine in coffee (my stimulant of choice :) with slightly-modified speed?
From the TFsummary:
As cool as it sounds, that's not a feature, that's a bug.
Allow me to nerd out for a bit: When Synthehol was invented, Romulan Ale (which presumably contained real alcohol) became illegal.
And if you go back and re-read TFA, you'll see that's pretty much where this is goin. This guy's not interested in an alternative to alcohol, he's looking for a substitute for alcohol. Even if he is working in good faith, his efforts will be used to help the neo-prohibitionists. And I can't get down with that. Because I like real ale, Romulan or not. (Homebrewing is like turning half the basement into a mad scientist's chemistry lab for a day, and it's all the more fun because you get to consume the product of your experiment when it's done!)
Around this time of year, I usually say "A drink? No thanks, I'm driving." But on this one, I'm gonna have to say "Benzos? No thanks, I'm drinking."
Uh, no. Put down the drink, it seems to have damaged your brain.
The primary cause of most hangover symptoms is very simple: Dehydration. The rest are caused by the presence of metabolic by-products of alcohol, which cause, among other things, a decline in available glucose for use by the brain, inhibition of liver function, and vitamin B12 deficiency.
For more information, wikipedia is your friend.
"Prof Nutt and his team are concentrating their efforts on benzodiazepines, of which diazepam, the chief ingredient of Valium is one."
In other words, let's invent another Happy Pill that will make big profit for Big Pharmco. And we'll call it an "alcohol substitute" because alcohol is well-known as the active ingredient in alcoholism, and you're in favor of a cure for alcoholism, right?
Good thing they're not calling it a "Valium analog", what with Valium's well-known and deserved reputation for causing addiction, tolerance, and withdrawal.
-kgj
If it is ingested orally, then it will be metabolized in the liver. What about its toxicity? If it's the same or higher than alcohol, then the illusion of safety may in the end be detrimental to the health of the user.
End anonymous moderation and posting on
And this is the "we can just turn it off" part:
“I’ve been in experiments where I’ve taken benzos,” said Professor Nutt. “One minute I was sedated and nearly asleep, five minutes later I was giving a lecture.
I think we've seen this show before. It was called the 1950's and 60's.
Can't sleep? Take a pill to sleep. Trouble waking up? Take a pill to wake up. Now you're really awake and agitated and jittery? Take a pill to calm you down.
Be sure to wash those pills down with a nice distilled beverage of your choice and don't forget have a refreshing smoke.
Or the Catholics. If you're going to have fun, the punishment must be built-in.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
You know the first thing I'm gonna fucking do, is mix this shit in my rum and cokes while chewing some nicotine gum and smoking a fat joint.
And I know I'm not the only one.
Liberty.
To avoid a hangover with the real stuff, just stay hydrated. Not difficult.
It seems that the head researcher on this project is David Nutt, who was sacked by the British government over his "controversial" views on drugs like THC and ecstasy. What a bunch of blowhards; but then I'm not one to talk, since the teabaggers here hold the same rigid views.
The guy is awesome. Having been sacked in a purely political manoeuvre by Jacqui Smith (spit) it sounds like he now leads an Alexander Shulgin-like life of synthesising new chemicals and trying them out faster than the government can ban or control them. Sadly the same reasons for him being sacked will probably mean that this project doesn't gain any traction. Politics trump science and reason...
What junk are you drinking? Smirnoff?
It isn't the alcohol which gives you a headache. It's the alcohol in combination with the rest of the crap in the beverage.
Either buy decent quality and/or drink a glass of water for each drink and take two paracetamol before you go to bed.
There seems to be reason to believe that the hangover is caued by acetaldehyde. Though, I have noticed that some drinks are worse than others. For example, I think red wine has very small amounts of alcohols other than ethanol, alcohols which are a bit more toxic. It's probably also why I seem to get much more subjectively drunk from red wine than an equivalent amount of most liquors. Beer has a similar effect with me, and I assume that's because of the hops. Hops alone are sedating, and in fact hops tea (non-fermented, non-alcoholic) can be used as a natural sleep aid or a way to relax.
From that Wiki article:
Most people of East Asian descent have a mutation in their alcohol dehydrogenase gene that makes this enzyme unusually effective at converting ethanol to acetaldehyde, and about half of such people also have a form of acetaldehyde dehydrogenase that is less effective at converting acetaldehyde to acetic acid.[16] This combination causes them to suffer from alcohol flush reaction, in which acetaldehyde accumulates after drinking, leading to immediate and severe hangover symptoms. These people are therefore less likely to become alcoholics.[17][18]
The drug disulfiram (Antabuse) prevents the oxidation of acetaldehyde to acetic acid, and it has the same unpleasant effect on drinkers. Antabuse is used as a deterrent for alcoholics who wish to stay sober.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
We already have alcohol substitutes ( read: recreational drugs ) that are safer than alcohol. Only problem is, they're illegal.
You can't handle the truth. Dr. David Nutt, the British government scientist that was recently fired, did an exhaustive study of the real impact of recreational drugs. Herion was 8.32, alcohol 5.54, Cannabis 4.00, LSD 3.68 and Ecstacy 3.27. A higher score is worse.( Many other drugs were in the study).
So we already have several safer alternatives to alcohol.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Paracetamol which is better known as Tylenol
Paracetamol is not better known as Tylenol, only a tiny proportion of the world population know paracetamol as Tylenol.
And the GP is not correct.
along with alcohol was rather unhealthy to the liver
Paracetamol is metabolized whether there is alcohol involved or not; Paracetamol is unhealthy for the liver regardless.
Deleted
That's weird. One minute, I was in his lecture. Five minutes later, I was nearly asleep.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
As someone who's drank practically every type of ethanol under the sun, from Busch beer to Johnny Walker Blue to fortified "wine" to home-brewed mead to gluten-free beer to Cristal to Everclear, in every combination imaginable, getting blackout drunk on nothing but neat Jim Beams all night or Guinness or a different drink every time, who's tried every hangover cure, multivitamins, aspirin, Vicodin, hair of the dog, bacon and eggs, a gallon of water before bed, drinking a large glass of water between every alcoholic beverage, you name it, I can say with the utmost confidence that the "impurities" have fuck-all effect on your hangover.
Try evaporating all the alcohol out of the worst possible plastic-bottle booze, and drink the remains all the way down. You won't feel a thing. Now go raise your BAC to 0.25% with 100% pure lab-grade ethanol, drink a bottle of water between every serving, take a four Tylenol before bed, and tell me how you feel in the morning.
You get hung over because you drank poison. The perfect hangover cure is morphine. Thread over.
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And bbviously, you're not a good reader. The dude authoritatively said that dehydration is the primary cause of a hangover, based on a wiki link that he cited. However, the wiki link doesn't say that and is in fact inconclusive about what the primary cause of hangover is, let alone what causes a hangover.
besides that, the original poster's point may actually be correct too. There are other things in different types of alcohol that cause hangovers to be worse/better than others, which the dude citing wikipedia is trying to discredit. however, the wikipedia article even specifically mentions white wine causing less of a hang over than red wine because of content other than alcohol (and subsequently ethanol dehydration).
finally, that dude citing wikipedia decided to go off and be a pompous fucking ass by saying the original poster had brain damage. so i felt the need to put him in his place instead of misrepresenting what the wikipedia article said, which he originally cited, not me.
"Less talk, more synthehol!"
This ain't rocket surgery.