Alcohol Substitute Promises All The Buzz With No Hangover
Can an alcohol substitute really promise all the buzz with no nasty side effects? According to one British neuroscientist, he thinks it’s not only possible, but he also claims he has developed it. According to ABC News, Professor David Nutt, director of the neuropsychopharmacology unit at London’s Imperial College, said he was motivated to find a safer alternative to alcohol and has experimented with new compounds on himself.
Nutt told The Telegraph that 1.5 million people a year are killed in one way or another by alcohol, and that 10 percent of alcohol drinkers become addicts. While he is treading carefully with his experiments, Nutt believes that he may have something worth investing in.
He continued on to tell The Telegraph, “I’ve done the prototype experiments myself. I’ve been inebriated and then it’s been reversed by the antagonist. That’s what really gave us the idea. There’s no question that you can produce a whole range of effects like alcohol by manipulating the brain.”
It’s true, many people drink alcohol to help them feel relaxed and sociable in both large and small group settings. Others’ drink it for the “buzz” and other numbing effects. Nutt believes that “in theory, we can make an alcohol surrogate that makes people feel relaxed and sociable and remove the unwanted effects, such as aggression and addictiveness,”
The Inquisitr reported earlier that Nutt has developed a pill that can cause a person to feel intoxicated, without the need to drink alcohol. According to ABC News, Nutt has identified a total of five compounds that target the same neurotransmitter system in the brain that responds to booze but now needs “to test them to see if people find the effects as pleasurable as alcohol.”
As stated before, Nutt has experimented with a few compounds on himself, and believes that after isolating a single compound it can lead to creating an antidote capable of instantly reversing the drug’s effect. Nutt told The Telegraph that “after exploring one possible compound I was quite relaxed and sleepily inebriated for an hour or so, then within minutes of taking the antidote I was up giving a lecture with no impairment whatsoever.”
Is it possible that an alcohol substitute can have you feeling all the “good” effects without leaving you with all the negative side effects? Nutt says that he still has some work to do, but that he is working on getting in touch with alcohol manufacturers about producing the substitute in the form of a drink.
[Image via Shutterstock/Africa Studio]
