I noticed a surge in hits from people searching for information about Alcopal or reviews of it. As I have said previously, Alcopal does not work. This is especially true when you consider that the guy who is peddling the stuff can’t even make up his mind how it is supposed to work in his marketing claims – he has variously said that it absorbs alcohol before you do, that it prevents it getting into the bloodstream “from the stomach”, and that it masks it on your breath. At the moment he appears to be back to claiming that it absorbs alcohol before you do – which would be scientifically impossible for such a small amount of material as is in the tablets, considering the volume of alcohol the type of arseholes likely to want to use it will have swallowed.
Anyway, when I got home today I noticed that the ASA has ruled against Alcopal’s latest set of inflated and unjustified claims. This is not the first time they’ve ruled against Alcopal, either.
This time around, our erstwhile Snake Oil peddler is claiming that…
New Alcopal tablets guarantee to improve impairments caused by consuming alcohol. Enjoy your night out without the fear of being spiked or ending up in a drunken stupor. Alcopal’s clever little ingredient prevents alcohol being absorbed through the stomach and into the bloodstream; it also gives some protection to the liver and kidneys.
I’m not sure why it is “new”. Maybe because the “old” one didn’t work, after all? But the real problem is that 80% of the alcohol you drink gets absorbed in the small intestine and not the stomach, so even if there was even a slight scientific justification for for claiming Alcopal acts as some sort of barrier in the stomach region, it falls flat on its face when intestinal absorption is brought in. And the comment about the liver and kidneys is a sly suggestion that alcohol-related liver disease can be prevented by Alcopal.
The ingredients in Alcopal do not stop alcohol getting into your bloodstream to any significant extent. The ingredients in Alcopal do not protect your liver and kidneys. The ingredients in Alcopal simply do not work. And the fact that Alcopal Ltd didn’t even bother to respond to the ASA’s questions shows clearly what kind of people you are dealing with.
Don’t waste your time even thinking about buying anything that makes these claims.