Over the last several years, I noticed, in myself, my ability to metabolize alcohol was decreasing, resulting in unpleasant side effects. In me, it resulted in an increased and irregular heartbeat. This is the same symptom I have from allergies, including food allergies, so it took a while for my wife and I to discover that it was actually caused by wine consumption. If I go outside and do yardwork, without wearing a mask, I have the same problem. And the problem with a rapid and irregular heartbeat is that when your heart pauses, your blood can pool and possibly clot, leading to a stroke.
So, being a wine lover and collector, I was not happy about it. The result was that I quit drinking wine on a regular basis. I still collected, but only drank on special occasions. However, this past Christmas, I took a bottle from my collection, the 2006 Torbreck Woodcutter's Shiraz, to try with my family. I had one glass. That night, and most of the next day, my heart was pounding, rapid and irregular. It drains my energy, and makes me feel like I've been beaten up. Not good. My usual cure is to drink tons of water.
So I started to research what was happening, and not only did I find out, but I found a cure. And it works.
To metabolize alcohol, your body first uses an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase to break the alcohol down into acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is toxic, and is 30 times more toxic than alcohol. Your body then uses an enzyme called acetaldehyde dehydrogenase to break the acetaldehyde down into acetic acid, which is vinegar, It gets further broken down, and eliminated.
The problem is that some people, in fact, a large portion of the Chinese population, do not create enough acetaldehyde dehydrogenase in their bodies to break down the acetaldehyde. In the Chinese, it is hereditary. Several months ago my daughter told me, while in a first aid class in school, that her teacher, who is Chinese, told her that the Chinese cannot drink alcohol. I didn't believe her at the time. It turns out that about half of the Chinese population have this problem. The symptoms are flushing (red skin), and increased heart and respiration rates. Acetaldehyde is also what causes hangovers.
During my research, I discovered a cure. It is Cysteine, an amino acid. I won't go into the complicated details here about how it works, but later I'll provide a link to one of the articles that explains it. In one lab study done with rodents, rats were given a LD-90 dose of acetaldehyde (the dose that would normally kill 90% of the animals). Those that were pretreated with a combination of cysteine, vitamin c, and vitamin B-1, survived. In other words, NONE of the cysteine treated animals succumbed to the lethal dose of acetaldehyde.
On our Anniversary, Dec. 30th, I wanted to have some wine. My wife and I both took 500 mg of L-Cysteine, 500 mg of Vitamin C, and 100 mg of Vitamin B-1 (Thiamine) before we went out to dinner. I had one glass of red. I had no problems, no rapid or irregular heartbeat. My wife was surprised to find that she did not get tired from the wine, as she usually does.
Last night I took the same dose before I went to a wine tasting. Again, no problem. My sister also recently tried it, and said it worked for her as well.
In the article that turned us on to this, the author recommended, which is what he takes, 200 mg of Cysteine, 600 mg of C, and 100 mg of B-1 before you drink. Then the same amount while you drink, repeating it for each drink you have (per one ounce of alcohol) and then again after you finish drinking. We couldn't find that low of an amount of Cysteine, we could only find 500 mg capsules. So we just took it once, before drinking, and it worked well.
So, even if you only want to prevent a hangover, this is a great thing. For me, it is a wonderful solution to a life threatening situation. By the way, other things that produce acetaldehyde in the body are yeast infections (candida), cigarette smoking, and car exhaust.
Here's a link to one of the articles, the one that mentions how it works, and the dosage to take:
http://www.ceri.com/alcohol.htm
When I looked up "hangover cures" in Google, I found all kinds of advice, but very few people seem to know about Cysteine.
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