This is due to be reviewed on the news tonight in a “does it really work?” special, but let’s just assume for the moment that it does work.
The site claims the product speeds up the elimination of alcohol from the bloodstream, thereby lowering the BAC (blood alcohol concentration).
They go on to say, several times on pages that are peppered with typos, that they guarantee nothing and please please please don’t ever drink & drive.
But on the other hand they are offering a magic potion to help intoxicated people beat a breathalizer even though their BAC may still be dangerously high. If you are in no position to judge your ability to drive, how will you know well enough to chug a bottle of sober-x™?
This is especially troubling:
Great. So by the time they were able to get the driver to a clinic to have blood drawn, Sober-x™ had done its job and knocked the guy’s BAC down to legal levels. Still, they guy was pulled over for a reason. Whether he was weaving in traffic or nodding off at the wheel, the driver was impared to some degree at the time of the arrest! So here we have a product that can eliminate the evidence before a conviction can be locked in. Wonderful.
And if that wasn’t bad enough. This looks like a safety net that’s being sold to people who, when they really need it, won’t be in the right frame of mind to know whether or not they need it.
Go ahead and party hard! We’ve got your panacea right here!
It’s my understanding that you can blow under the legal limit and still get arrested for impaired driving if you’re driving in an unsafe fashion or in a state lacking in lucidity.
The idea behind this product certainly is immoral to my way of thinking. One thing that I’m curious about - if the alcohol leaves the blood stream at a faster rate, wouldn’t the person sober at a parallel increased rate?
For all my drinking war stories, I’m not very clear on how alcohol works.
Not all jurisdictions require a chemical test for DUI conviction, and if you’ve ever watched any of the episodes of “World’s Wildest Police Videos” with footage of drunks bungling their way through the alphabet, you’d know that direct BAC measurement isn’t the only way to tell if someone is fit to drive.
Just remember, every time you mix two potions together, or imbibe one while another is still in effect, there’s a 1-in-100 chance you’ll create an explosion that does 4d6 points of damage to everyone within a 10 foot radius. It says so in the Dungeon Master’s Guide, 1st and 2nd editions.
Purd: true, but remember that anybody who knows anything about how to get out of a DUI knows to avoid any of those tests. You aren’t going to prove your innocence, but you may well prove your guilt. AFAIK the only test that one is legally obliged to take is the breathalyzer, and that’s what this magic potion deals with.
tracer: Pssh. Second edition. That’s for math nerds, and people who aren’t creative enough to make their own characters and need “kits”. It’s all about third edition.
Math nerds? Math nerds?! What, because you have to subtract your opponent’s Armor Class from your THAC0 when you roll an attack? “Oooooh, I have to subtract! That’s way too advanced math for me!” Wuss.
I think it’s great, and I am glad you brought it to my attention. I read all their material and did a bit of poking around on my own. The product appears to be legit. The active ingredient is a plant extract and it can lower the alcohol more rapidly by increasing liver bile filtering more alcohol and converting it for elimination.
Rather than lable it as a weasely way to avoid a dui conviction, maybe you can see it as a responsibile choice to use the product before motoring home.
Right, sure! Say, have I got a deal for you on property in Florida!
Sorry, but there is nothing that you can do acutely to make alcohol leave your system faster, other than hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis, which takes quite a few hours and a few surgical procedures. If you’re a chronic drinker, or take some medications on a chronic basis which cause your liver to metabolize things more readily, you’ll detox a little faster, but this stuff is a scam pure and simple.
Well excuuuse me Doctor. As I mentioned, I did a bit of poking around and found plenty of information to back it up. The active ingredient appears to be Milk Thistle or Silybum Marianum. I found tons of information, this site is a fair representation, I hope you’ll look it over and explain why it doesn’t work.
The nature of my work entails a fair amount of bar time and I do like to imbibe. Though I strive for responsible drinking, I am often left wondering if perhaps I am over the limit. If there is a tool available to help insure the responsible use of alcohol, I’m all for it.
bare, I hope you are wearing your asbestos Underoos if you’re going to tangle with QtM on a medical point of fact.
And I checked out that site, and I wouldn’t bet the house on it if I were you. There is no medical or scientific basis whatsoever for the claim of this plant rehabbing people from drug and alcohol abuse.
And this is classic (from the site)-
"Thought to be a great breeder of milk and proper diet for nursing women
Thought to have a healing property in those with snake bites
If worn around the neck it would protect you from snake bites
Fruit formerly thought to cure hydrophobia
Applied externally, said to have been proven beneficial in cases of cancer "
How does a plant make me eat better when I’m nursing? Mind control? A “breeder of proper diet”- too funny.
How does it heal a snakebite? What kind of snake? Non-poisionous?!?
If I wear it around my neck, it’ll protect me from snakebite? How about vampires?
It will cure hydrophobia? No way.
If I rub it on, it will help my cancer? Doubtful. This is why sites like this use the words “proven beneficial” in cases of serious diseases. Monkey shit might prove beneficial if I wanted it to hard enough.
Sorry for the semi-flame bare, but we’re about fighting ignorance around here, and that site did nothing to dispel any ignorance that I can see.
I can understand if you are looking for the latest magic pill, but honey this ain’t it.
And this takes the cake, considering we are talking about using this stuff to fool a breathalyzer- if you take the tincture form, it’s 60% alcohol! How could that HELP with a breath test?!?
The product in question SoberX is not a tincture, it contains no alcohol. The site I posted is but a sample of the hundreds of web pages devoted to case studies for many years. I could post many more, but I hope that those interested will simply take a look themselves.
Again, the product does not pretend to “fool a breatalyzer”, it enables the body to more quickly metabolize the alcohol through the liver.
I much admire Qadgop, his knowledge and willingness to share. There is lots of information out there, and I don’t expect any one individual, even a hard working doctor to have all the facts.
I am a natural skeptic, I never heard of the product prior to seeing the original post. I spent much of last night digging into the SoberX site and managed to figure out what was in it. Subsequent research indicates that the product is not a scam but has a long history of medical testing.
I look forward to the good Doctor or anyone else, to review some of the information and debunk it.
OK, bare. Since you did all the work, coming up with all of those sites quoting journal studies about the active? ingredient in the product, answer this:
Did any of those sites suggest or confirm that taking a dose of silymarin would cause your body to metabolize alcohol fast enough in a few hours to lower the BAC to an acceptable level? I doubt it. If you can cite something do so.
But unless you can, most rational people would take the word of a physician who has done this for a living for many years over a web-site that deals in generalities and hype about their exec who beat a DUI rap! AS IF:(
bare, the simplest way to “debunk” claims such as those being made for this wondrous product is to ask: Where is the evidence from controlled clinical trials that it is a) safe, and b) effective?
The Sober-X website should defintely get one’s bullshit detector going off loudly, in that there is no such evidence. Instead, we have the world-famous Testimonials section. Testimonials are a favorite device of quacks and scam artists. They are perfect for the gullible, because there’s no way to “prove” that Billybob Six-Pack didn’t beat a DUI by scarfing down his Sober-X potion. Billybob says it’s true! Who could doubt him and the other nimrods who swear up and down that “it worked for me!”? If they even exist.
I hope you’re not making a nasty crack about Ohio here, bub. We don’t put up with that stuff on the Straight Dope.
Sorry bare, but there just ain’t no evidence out there on the net that I could find to substantiate your claims. And I checked over 200 sites on both the web and usenet groups, looking for actual scientific data. It’s not out there. The site you listed above about milk thistle gives some nice data about what it does in certain circumstances, but even this data tends to run counter to the claim of the “sober-x” people:
Now you will notice that it does not state anywhere that it will lower serum blood alcohol levels acutely. If milk thistle acts to prevent the entry of toxins into the liver (and evidence says that it does), that will actually prolong the elevation of the level of said toxin in the bloodstream.
Now I currently have a patient on Milk Thistle, placed on it by the hepatologists at the University of Wisconsin, for treatment of his Hepatitis C induced cirrhosis. So I’m actually using this stuff clinically. Here’s a nice link from the NIH about what is currently known about it’s effects on the liver: Clinical Guidelines and Recommendations | Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
(BTW, this is a nice example of credible evidence. I don’t think you’ll find the word “Testimonial” (thanks Jack) anywhere in it. Instead you see the term “Evidence-based Practice Program” used right away).
So basically the “Sober-X” people took the information that Milk Thistle derivatives can help a damaged liver, and pulled it completely out of context to market snake oil.
Now if you wish to continue as their advocate here, it is up to you to provide clear, credible, scientifically based evidence that their product does what you say it does; that this product will reduce blood alcohol content levels faster than placebo will. You clearly stated in your last post that
After searching, I have found no credible evidence that this is true. But it’s not my job to disprove your assertion. It is up to you to prove it, with credible evidence. Please do so now.
Sadly I missed the report. I work this weekend & had to be in bed by 10pm on both Friday & Saturday nights. I am watching the network’s archives to see if the story turns up.
Although we can discuss whether or not this stuff works, I was leaning more towards the irresponsibility aspects of the Sober-x people offering snake oil that will make people feel bullet-proof when it comes to drunk driving.
It looks like the only real product testing will be happening on the road. It’s a good thing we don’t test parachutes like this. (“High probability our product will slow your descent towards the ground! Every testimonial we receive reports our product is 100% effective!”)
