A yoghurt or pill taken before a night out could prevent a hangover and protect your liver from the effects of drinking.

Scientists have genetically engineered a probiotic to express an enzyme that makes you recover from alcohol more quickly with fewer associated health problems.

The team, from the Chinese Academy of Science’s Institute of Zoology, used the enzyme ADH1B, which accelerates the breakdown of alcohol in the body.

In experiments on mice they found that administering the probiotic that expresses the enzyme reduced alcohol absorption, prolonged alcohol tolerance, and shortened the animals’ recovery time after exposure to alcohol.

Hangovers aside, drinking alcohol has been linked to health problems in the human body, including heart disease, cirrhosis, and immune deficiency. Although drinking less would be better all around, the team said the research could lead to treatments for liver and intestinal disease.

The human body primarily uses forms of an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase, or ADH, to break down alcohol. The study, published in the journal Microbiology Spectrum, says that the enzyme ADH1B, found primarily in East Asian and Polynesian populations, is 100 times more active than other variants.

Dr Meng Dong and her colleagues looked for a safe delivery method, focusing on the probiotic Lactococcus lactis, a bacterium often used in fermentation. They used molecular cloning to introduce the gene for human ADH1B into a bacterial plasmid, which was then introduced into a strain of L. lactis which secreted the enzyme.

After making it resistant to stomach acid, they tested it on three groups of five mice, each exposed to different levels of alcohol.

Mice with no treatment became drunk within 20 minutes, and when put on their backs couldn’t turn themselves over.

But in the group that received the probiotic, half the mice were still able to turn themselves over an hour after alcohol exposure and a quarter never lost their ability to turn themselves over.

Further tests showed that two hours after exposure, blood alcohol levels in the control group continued to rise, while those in the probiotic-treated mice had begun to fall.

The researchers also found that treated mice showed lower levels of lipids and triglycerides in their livers, suggesting that the probiotic could alleviate alcohol-related damage to that organ.

Although the probiotic hasn’t yet been tested on humans, it could present a new way to reduce alcohol-induced health problems, and liver problems in general.

‘We believe that genetically engineered probiotics will provide new ideas for the treatment of liver diseases,’ said Dr Dong. ‘We are excited about the improvement of recombinant probiotics in acute alcohol-induced liver and intestinal damage.’

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