Students tired of suffering through the morning after a night of drinking might find relief in Drinkwel — a recent vitamin supplement created to counteract some negative effects of drinking — but doctors and professionals still say healthy habits are the easiest way to feel best in drinking’s aftermath.
The product, which physician and Drinkwel co-creator James Pendelton said initially was launched about a year and a half ago, has gained some attention from the college-age population through websites such as CampusFlock.
A product currently offered on CampusFlock is Drinkwel’s Life of the Party Kit, which includes packets of the vitamins, mints, electrolyte tablets, healthy cocktail recipes and drinking tips.
The supplement is not meant to encourage drinking, Pendelton said, but it is made with natural nutrients and minerals that promote liver health and refresh energy — which he said is helpful for those who drink in social settings.
“It’s definitely not a substitute for not drinking,” Pendelton said. “I recommend people just drinking in moderation, but at the same time something like this would definitely be supportive of a healthy lifestyle.”
If it was the right price, the product could be helpful for MSU students who drink frequently, biochemistry freshman Ivy Law said.
“A lot of people worry about the side effects of drinking after the fact,” Law said.
For some students, the best cure for a hangover simply is drinking water, eating a lot beforehand and suffering through if it gets out of hand, kinesiology junior Tim Obradovich said.
Obradovich said he isn’t sure he’d take a vitamin supplement such as Drinkwel to prevent hangovers and instead opts for tried-and-true ways of resolving the issue.
“I don’t know if it would be worth it,” Obradovich said. “The foolproof system for me is water before bed.”
Often, the college student lifestyle in general is detrimental to energy and health, with loss of sleep, unhealthy eating habits and stressful situations such as tests adding to the depleting effects of unmonitored alcohol consumption, Pendelton said.
“They’re not getting the balanced nutrients they need, especially for the work and activities they do,” he said, “They’re expending themselves so much. … This is where we really see things like supplements becoming effective.”
Rebecca Allen, an alcohol, tobacco and other drugs health educator at Olin Health Center, said students’ preventative measures when consuming alcohol should be based on four factors: how much they drink, how quickly they drink, personal characteristics such as gender, and circumstances of the drinking.
“The ways in which college students and others introduce alcohol quickly typically sets someone up for a night they didn’t really want to have,” Allen said.
Regardless of whether or not students take additional supplements to prevent negative drinking effects, they should make sure to take care of themselves through healthy habits, said Robert Patino, vitamin supplement manager and naturopathic doctor at The Better Health Store, 305 N. Clippert Ave.
“Water and foundational vitamins would do a lot to set the stage of good health,” Patino said. “People should do something every day to complement and strengthen their mind, body and spirit.”
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