Is it true that the butter eaten before drinking alcohol slows down intoxication and facilitates a hangover?

It is believed that if you eat a piece of oil in front of the feast, you can not get drunk longer and avoid poor health the next day. We checked whether this is an effective folk remedy from a scientific point of view.

To eat a piece of butter to alleviate the symptoms of alcohol intoxication and subsequent hangover, the media advise (for example, "Moscow 24" And "Gazeta.ru"), Portals about sports And A healthy lifestyleas well as users social networks. Visitors are interested in the effectiveness of this method services questions and answers. On some resources Approvedthat butter can replace olive or mix them. 

When alcohol gets In the human body, it is absorbed into the blood through the mucous membrane of the oral cavity, as well as the walls of the stomach and small intestines. After that, more of it split enzymes for assimilation or more easy excretion from the body. This is mainly happening in the liver, but a certain amount is excreted from the body as it is - with exhaled air and urine. It is thanks to this that you can determine the level of alcohol in the blood without its analysis - for example, traffic police officers ask drivers to “breathe into a tube” or take urine analysis. 

The degree of exposure to alcohol on the human body is determined by its concentration in the blood. This indicator affects well -being and behavior. The authors of most articles with recommendations to use a little oil before the feast claim that this product envelops the stomach and does not allow alcohol to absorb - this supposedly causes more light intoxication and good well -being the next morning. However, only 20% of alcohol It is absorbed into the blood through the stomach, a negligible amount - through the mucous membrane of the mouth, and the most part (up to 80%) through the small intestine. Therefore, the “enveloping” of the stomach, even if it occurs, certainly will not be able to completely prevent alcohol from entering the blood.

Source: pexels.com

The concentration of alcohol in the blood (and hence the intensity of intoxication) is affected by several factors at once. Firstly, these are the physical characteristics of a person: a healthy man weighing 90 kg from the same amount of alcohol intoxicates less than a fragile teenager weighing 50 kg. Secondly, the speed with which a person drinks alcoholic beverages plays his role. The adult body is capable of Reveal About 10 ml of pure alcohol per hour, a larger dose can cause not just intoxication, but alcohol poisoning: nausea, vomiting, headache, etc. That is, in order to almost guaranteed to avoid negative consequences, the glass of wine (125 ml) should be stretched for an hour and a half, and a half-liter bottle of strong beer-by three. Shots (40 ml) of strong drinks: vodka, tequila, whiskey, etc.-should be drunk no more than one and a half to two hours. 

Another factor affecting the rate of intoxication is how much a person was fed by the beginning of the party. Drink on Housing stomach Not the best idea: if it is empty, alcohol quickly falls into the small intestine, from where, as already mentioned above, it is mainly absorbed into the blood. In this case, intoxication will come faster. If the food eaten in advance is digested in the stomach, alcohol delay There, it will enter the intestines (and then into the blood) longer in a dosage, which will give the body the opportunity to have time to process it. Specialists Recommend In such situations, use balanced food, combining proteins, fats and carbohydrates (for example, a burger, sandwich or burrito). 

Source: pexels.com

In this sense, a piece of butter is better than nothing, but very insignificant. To eat a sufficient amount of this product so that it can seriously “score” the stomach and thus delay alcohol in it is quite difficult due to the organoleptic properties of oil. In addition, it consists of saturated fats, which in the diet consists of saturated fats Not worth it -This can lead to cardiovascular diseases and increase the level of poor cholesterol. So, if there is already butter in front of a party, it is better to spread it on bread - so the body, in addition to fat, will also receive carbohydrates with fiber. And from the point of view of organoleptic, it will be more pleasant than the oil is spoon.

At the same time, a dense dinner before the libations can only reduce the speed with which intoxication will occur - its severity primarily depends on the amount of drunk, since sooner or later alcohol will still fall into the bloodstream. That is, if you drink strong drinks with liters, dinner (it includes butter or not) will not save. In addition, the drunk alcohol affects not only the psychological state and behavior, but also the internal organs. "Checked" already It wroteWhat is safe for health of alcohol does not exist - regardless of what was eaten or drunk in front of her. 

In addition to folk remedies like butter, you can often find recommendations to take adsorbents before alcohol - for example, Activated carbon or "Enterosgel". Adsorbents do not allow toxic substances to be absorbed and remove them from the body, but for this they need some time, and alcohol is absorbed too quickly. Some scientists conducted experiments in the 1980s-measured the level of alcohol in the blood after taking activated coal and without it. In the end, they came to conclusionthat this tool is ineffective for "neutralizing" alcohol. “Verified” did not discover any large-scale, modern and authoritative studies that indicate that activated carbon can reduce the negative effects of alcohol. 

Source: pexels.com

Studies of the effectiveness of Enterosgel in such situations are quite limited, but experiments have shown that this tool slightly reduces the level of alcohol in the blood. So, in 2014, Russian scientists Offered Six subjects - healthy men aged 28–30 years - take Enterosgel in different dosages before, after either before, and after drinking alcohol. With any of the options for taking the drug, lower levels of alcohol in the blood were recorded, and the schemes were most effective when people took the product before and after alcohol. However, the results of this experiment can hardly be considered a convincing confirmation of the effectiveness of Enterosgel due to an extremely small sample.

As for the hangover, science is still Unknown, what exactly the mechanisms in the body are caused, which means that it is unknown to prevent it (except to completely abandon alcohol or at least minimize its doses). The methods of combating a hangover are also unknown - while experts came to the conclusion that it just needs to be survived, if necessary, using painkillers and a large amount of liquid. 

Thus, there is no convincing evidence that a piece of butter eaten in front of the party helps not intoxicated or avoid a hangover. “Verified” could not find any reports about the experiments that would confirm the positive effect of this folk remedy, nor the mechanism that would provide it. Before drinking alcohol, it’s much better to eat tightly. You can also find the recommendations of some pharmacy products that supposedly help reduce intoxication and avoid poor health the next day, but their efficiency studies are extremely limited.

Photo on the cover: pexels.com

Most of the untruth

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

  1. Healthline. 7 Evidence-Based Ways to Prevent Hangovers
  2. Is it true that a decrease in a degree of alcoholic beverages leads to a faster intoxication and a heavier hangover?
  3. Is it true that you can get rid of a hangover if you drink a little alcohol?
  4. Is it true that there is a safe or even healthy dose of alcohol?

If you find a spelling or grammatical error, please inform us of this, highlighting the text with an error and by pressing Ctrl+Enter.

Share with your friends

A message about the typo

Our editors will receive the following text: