Most all of us have been there. You wake up the next morning, after a night of drinking, and the sun is too bright, sounds are too loud and you swear to never drink again!
Well, a Toronto-based writing professor and former bar owner has spent the past decade drinking himself into oblivion in pursuit of the ultimate hangover cure — an experience that he documents in his new book, “Hungover: The Morning After and One Man’s Quest for the Cure” (Penguin Random House).
Bishop-Stall tried hundreds of so-called treatments. But his exhaustive research paid off: In the book, he reveals that he did, indeed, find a reliable hangover cure.
The ingredient that plans to save you, per Bishop-Stall, is a “high dose” — about 1,500 milligrams — of an amino acid called N-acetylcysteine (NAC). NAC, he explains, is “sort of a magic ingredient”: It helps the body produce a powerful anti-oxidant called glutathione. Plus, it’s earned its reputation as a toxicity cure: NAC is used in hospital settings to treat Tylenol overdoses.
Along with NAC, Bishop-Stall recommends taking vitamins B1, B6 and B12, which purportedly make NAC more effective, along with boswellia (frankincense), a supposed anti-inflammatory, and milk thistle, an herb that contains even more glutathione.
But Dr. Edward Goldberg, an internist and gastroenterologist in Manhattan, is skeptical of Bishop-Stall’s hard-earned cure.
“These supplements . . . are more for a chronic alcoholic with liver damage, not a casual drinker with a hangover,”