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This sounds too good to be true: a natural substance that keeps you sober no matter how much you drink, neutralises hangovers, and breaks the cycle of alcohol addiction. Extracts of a Chinese variety of the oriental raisin tree (Hovenia dulcis) have been used for 500 years to treat hangovers in China. Now dihydromyricetin (DHM), a component of the extract, has proved its worth as an intoxication blocker in a series of experiments on rats. It works by preventing alcohol from having its usual intoxicating effects on the brain.

"DHM will reduce the degree of drunkenness for the amount of alcohol drunk and will definitely reduce the hangover symptoms," says pharmacologist Jing Liang of the University of California, Los Angeles, who led the research team. "In time, it will reduce their desire for alcohol." Liang first tested whether DHM blocks the clumsiness and loss of coordination caused by drinking too much. To do this, she measured how long it took for treated rats to right themselves after being laid on their backs in a V-shaped cradle.

After she injected rats' abdomens with a dose of alcohol equal to 15 to 20 beers in 2 hours for a human, they took about 70 minutes, on average, to right themselves. However, when an injection of the same amount of booze included a milligram of DHM per kilogram of rat body weight, the animals recovered their composure within just 5 minutes. Rats given heavy doses of alcohol cowered away in corners, whereas those given the extract with their alcohol behaved normally and were as inquisitive as rats given no alcohol at all.