Recent experiments reveal that herbs traditionally used to fight Hepatitis B could also aid in expediting alcohol metabolism, researchers from the Animal Technology Institute of Taiwan said yesterday morning.
While Phyllanthus urinaria -- commonly known as chamber bitter -- was introduced as a remedy for kidney stones and hepatitis B, recent studies performed on mice have identified the herb's ability to enhance the body's detoxification process, allowing blood alcohol content to decrease more quickly than under natural conditions.
"We found that after injecting 0.5cc of 50 proof alcohol, two out of five mice died due to alcohol poisoning. Only the mice that had taken P. urinaria were able to process the alcohol," Liao said.
The Animal Technology Institute had simulated three conditions, with the experimental group given Phyllanthus urinaria in each case.
In the first experiment, the herb was fed to mice just two hours before they were injected with 0.5cc of 50 proof alcohol.
Liao explained that the results revealed that mice who had taken the herb processed the alcohol more quickly than the control group.
In the second trial, the experimental group was given the herb for two weeks before researchers injected both groups with alcohol.
According to Liao, while the blood alcohol content of the control group remained at 0.4 percent throughout the fourth hour after alcohol was injected, the blood alcohol content of the experimental group was measured at 0.14 percent by the fourth hour.
In the third experiment, 20 proof alcohol was put into the food and drink of all the mice for two weeks.
While the experimental group was simultaneously given chamber bitter, the control group was not.
The results confirmed that while the control group maintained blood alcohol levels of roughly 0.53 percent throughout the experiment, the experimental group's blood alcohol level was reduced to 0.24 percent by the fourth hour.
Liao said that the herb was best used as a long-term protective agent against liver disease, but that it could also be used on a short-term basis to help detoxification.
However, Jull Lin (
Lin explained that the department felt it was "unethical" to promote the use of detoxification agents.
"Starting with a blood alcohol level of 0.5 percent, a healthy rate of metabolism would reduce the level to 0.2 percent about four hours after alcohol consumption," Liao said.
Liao said similar experiments would be conducted in the future to study the effects Phyllanthus urinaria had on pesticides and acetaminophen, the active ingredient in painkillers such as Tylenol and Panadol.
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