Can Olive Oil Really Prevent a Hangover? An Expert Weighs In

A recent TikTok trend has emerged among Generation Z, wherein indi­vid­u­als con­sume shots of olive oil before drink­ing alco­hol, with the belief that this prac­tice may mit­i­gate the effects of hang­overs.

Although the con­cept is not entirely novel, its pop­u­lar­ity has surged recently, reflect­ing a con­flu­ence of social media influ­ence and pseu­do­sci­en­tific claims.

The trend gained trac­tion fol­low­ing asser­tions made by American record pro­ducer and song­writer Benny Blanco, who con­tended that the pre-drink­ing rit­ual of ingest­ing olive oil effec­tively pre­vents hang­overs.

Blanco advo­cates for this method, claim­ing it ren­ders one immune to the dis­com­fort of a hang­over the fol­low­ing day.

“My friend Nino taught me this,” Blanco told The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon. ​“These old guys from Italy came in. They said, ​‘Before you drink, you take a shot of this, you can’t get hun­gover. Impossible.”

Blanco and Fallon drank two shots of olive oil before con­sum­ing a glass of red wine. Blanco’s claim has ignited dis­cus­sions among inter­net users and gar­nered sig­nif­i­cant atten­tion on social media plat­forms, par­tic­u­larly TikTok.

@ggduve worst shot ever? yes. did it work? yes. will i do it again? maybe. #hang­over­cure#oliveoil­shots#pregame#jim­my­fal­lon#ben­ny­blanco♬ orig­i­nal sound — FallonTonight

In August, a TikTok user known as Itssjessc pro­vided an update on her expe­ri­ence.

“It helped. I’m not going to say it’s going to fully cure you from a hang­over if you drink a lot, but I’m a light­weight, and usu­ally the next morn­ing, regard­less of how many drinks I have, I don’t feel very well,” Itssjessc wrote. ​“However, I feel fine right now. I feel much bet­ter.”

“I con­firm that,” wrote another TikTok user. ​“It is known in Greece too, a table­spoon of olive oil before you go out and no hang­over.”

Social media users assert that ​“the olive oil coats the stom­ach and pre­vents gas­tric emp­ty­ing, so it pre­vents alco­hol from get­ting into the intes­tine.”

However, the Association of UK Dieticians has pointed out that there is ​“no such thing as lin­ing your stom­ach.”

Mary Flynn, the founder of the Olive Oil Health Initiative of Brown University’s Miriam Hospital, told Olive Oil Times that the trend is ​“quite humor­ous” but has some truth.

“Alcohol, water and sodium are absorbed from the stom­ach; every­thing else is absorbed in the first part of the small intestines, the duo­de­num,” she said. ​“That is why if you have an ​‘empty stom­ach’ (i.e., are hun­gry), you can feel the effects of alco­hol quicker than if you have eaten.”

Flynn added that pep­tide, a gas­tric inhibitory pep­tide present in fat, slows the stom­ach emp­ty­ing process. Additionally, fat is more dif­fi­cult to absorb than pro­teins and car­bo­hy­drates, so it is released from the stom­ach more slowly.

“So fat will slow things leav­ing the stom­ach, but I could not think how it would affect alco­hol leav­ing the stom­ach, and it cer­tainly would not help with a hang­over,” Flynn said.

Chris Rhodes, a med­ical doc­tor and nutri­tion expert, told The Focus that noth­ing can cure a hang­over, and most home reme­dies attempt to ease the symp­toms.

“The long and short of it is no, olive oil will not be able to pre­vent a hang­over,” he said. ​“Hangovers are a mul­ti­fac­eted con­di­tion caused by the far-reach­ing neg­a­tive effects of alco­hol con­sump­tion that include prob­lems from dehy­dra­tion to inflam­ma­tion, brain dam­age to liver func­tion.”

Flynn added that the basic premise behind the claim is incor­rect, point­ing out that the stom­ach is full of hydrochlo­ric acid, which breaks down food and liq­uid for diges­tion, so no sin­gle sub­stance ​‘coats’ the stom­ach.

“Your stom­ach is not empty like a plas­tic con­tainer, so oil would not ​‘coat’ it,” she said. ​“It is pos­si­ble that if some­one drank a cup or so of any oil – other oils would do the same thing they are claim­ing for olive oil – that might slow alco­hol absorp­tion, but a big ​‘might.’”

However, Flynn pointed out that fatty food con­sumed with alco­hol may help to dilute it and pos­si­bly slow its absorp­tion. ​“That is the idea behind serv­ing cheese with alco­hol,” she said.

“There is no harm in con­sum­ing olive oil, but no ben­e­fit for a hang­over,” Flynn con­cluded.

• Delish
• The Focus