Does ZBiotics Work? Here’s How It Helps Reduce Your Misery After Drinking
Take This Probiotic Strain Before You Go Out Drinking & You Won’t Feel Like Death the Next Day
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We’ve all been there: After waking up with a throbbing headache, you start cursing for downing that second or third whiskey sour and swear you’ll never drink again (until tomorrow, anyway). Then when the next social gathering rolls around, you totally forget about the inevitable impending misery, throw caution to the wind, order another drink, and repeat the whole cycle all over again.
For years, scientists have been studying why hangovers happen — and as it turns out, the culprit is a buildup of acetaldehyde, which is a chemical that’s produced as your body breaks down the alcohol. ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol, a game-changing new product, contains a probiotic that was specifically engineered to help your body digest acetaldehyde so you can eliminate it faster and more effectively. In other words: You can now have your IPA and drink it, too, without suffering the consequences.
To be clear, ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol is not going to work miracles — nor does it offer a justification for knocking back five or six drinks. But so far, the feedback from customers has been pretty darn promising.
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Here’s everything you need to know about why ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol works and how to use it for maximum benefits — plus our own honest ZBiotics review.
How ZBiotics Helps
In order to grasp why ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol is effective, it’s important to first understand how the body digests alcohol.
“When we drink, the vast majority of the alcohol is absorbed into the bloodstream and then broken down in the liver, which is very good at this process, and detoxifies the alcohol in two stages using two separate enzymes,” explains Zack Abbott, who has a PhD in microbiology and immunology from the University of Michigan and is the co-founder and CEO of ZBiotics. “The first enzyme converts alcohol into acetaldehyde and the second enzyme converts that acetaldehyde into acetate.”
Acetate is basically vinegar, says Abbott, and therefore pretty innocuous — but acetaldehyde, on the other hand, is highly toxic.
“The good news is that your liver is good at expressing both of those enzymes and very little of that liver-derived acetaldehyde escapes into the bloodstream,” says Abbott. “However, the story in your gut is a bit different. Only a small amount of the alcohol you drink is metabolized directly in the gut — in large part by your microbiome — before it can be absorbed into the bloodstream.”
Unfortunately, the microbes in your gut are only good at expressing that first enzyme to convert alcohol into acetaldehyde, but not so good at expressing the second enzyme to deal with the acetaldehyde.
“So while the gut is only a minor site of alcohol metabolism, it ends up being the major source of acetaldehyde formation, with 10-100 times higher concentrations of acetaldehyde detected in the gut than in the bloodstream after drinking alcohol,” Abbott tells AskMen. “Then this gut-derived acetaldehyde is subsequently absorbed into the bloodstream, where it wreaks havoc throughout the body before eventually making its way to the liver to be broken down.”
At that point, the damage has been done.
“We built the ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol specifically to help you deal with this gut-derived acetaldehyde,” Abbott says. “The probiotic bacteria can express the same type of enzyme your liver uses to break down acetaldehyde to address that gut-derived acetaldehyde at the source.”
The Back Story of ZBiotics
The building and testing of this probiotic strain took years, says Abbott. The team started with a naturally occurring probiotic bacteria called Bacillus subtilis (B. subtilis) — which humans have been ingesting via fermented foods and supplements for centuries.
“This strain has the natural ability to pass through your stomach acid unharmed and make enzymes in your gut,” explains Abbott. “We then used genetic engineering to insert the instructions for making the enzyme that breaks down acetaldehyde into the bacteria’s genome. The result was ZB183™ — a probiotic strain of B. subtilis that is identical in every way to the one humans already consume but with one additional trait: the ability to break down acetaldehyde.”
Abbott admits that he didn’t start the company with this specific purpose in mind.
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“In fact, the first time I pitched using this technology to help people feel better the day after drinking alcohol, it was at the end of a long list of potential applications, and it was largely meant as a joke, just to show we could do anything,” he tells AskMen. “But people immediately perked up at the mention of it and showed a lot of excitement and enthusiasm for that idea. As I started to think about it more, I realized it was a perfect first application to demonstrate the value of genetically engineered probiotics. It was an age-old problem with no good solution.”
Tips For Using ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol
ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol comes in mini bottles that you take like a shot — and the key to getting the most out of it is to make it your first drink of the night, whether you down it before leaving the house or on the way to the bar.
The company states that the probiotic in this product will likely stay in your system for 18-24 hours after you consume it, so one little bottle will cover you for a whole day — from that bloody mary at brunch to beers at dinner.
That said, remember: you still can’t binge drink and expect to feel spectacular the next morning — so temper your expectations here.
“ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol works best when paired with all the other best practices for responsible drinking: drink in moderation, pace yourself, support your liver and kidneys with plenty of water, don’t drink on an empty stomach, stop drinking earlier in the night, and ensure you get plenty of high-quality sleep,” Abbott says.
So, Does ZBiotics Work?
“The most overwhelming and validating thing is the phenomenally positive feedback we’ve received about the product for the last 6+ years,” says Abbott. “We have extremely positive customer satisfaction, and about 95% of customers say they feel better than expected the day after drinking ZBiotics before alcohol.”
Abbott claims that these days, he never drinks without ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol, and hasn’t had a rough morning in 6 years.
On YouTube and Reddit, there are countless glowing ZBiotics reviews.
“I swear by this,” wrote one YouTuber — while another insisted it reduces their hangover symptoms by up to 85%.
“Usually after a night of drinking my stomach is completely wrecked the next morning till about late afternoon,” wrote another YouTube user, who says they had no digestive issues after using ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol.
“I suffer from Asian flush, which is usually caused by breaking alcohol into acetaldehyde faster than usual and being unable to break down acetaldehyde into acetic acid fast enough,” wrote one Redditor. “I'm pleased to say that with Zbiotics I've seen the Asian flush reaction reduced by maybe 80% of what I'd usually experience. Didn't get rid of it, but it helped significantly and made it so I could actually enjoy drinking with others.”
As for our take — we tried ZBiotics on a night out with friends (which may have involved a glass of wine and an espresso martini) and can vouch for the fact that the morning after there were no harsh headaches or brutal nausea.
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