(건강) 칡뿌리에는 과연 과음과 숙취를 막아주는 효능이 있을까?

출처: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35381041

Could a Chinese herb stop you drinking too much? 칡뿌리에는 과연 과음과 숙취를 막아주는 효능이 있을까?

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• From the sectionMagazine

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In today's Magazine

• The bright red work of art (and 40 others) now protected
• The battle to stop people from copying shapes
• Quiz of the week's news
• 10 things we didn't know last week

New alcohol guidelines have stressed the importance of cutting back. Could an ancient Chinese herbal remedy help you get that pleasurable buzz while drinking less, asks Michael Mosley. 새로 나온 음주지침은 음주의 양을 줄이는 것이 중요하다고 밝히고 있다. 약초는 음주량을 줄여도 음주에서 얻는 즐거운 기분을 얻도록 해줄까?

One of the main reasons we drink alcohol is because it makes us feel more sociable. But when we drink too much it also does huge damage. Recent guidelines recommend we stick to 14 units a week, which will be harder for some than others. 우리가 음주하는 이유들 가운데 하나는 음주가 우리를 더욱 사람들과 잘 어울리도록 해주기 때문이다. 그런데 우리가 과음을 하게 되면 우리에게 커다란 손해를 끼친다. 최근의 음주지침에 따르면 주당 알코올레벨 14단위(역자: 125 ml  와인 잔 혹은 라거맥주나 그냥 맥주의 7 pints에 해당 )인데, 이 정도가 어떤 사람들에겐 힘들 수 있다.

I'm currently "enjoying" a dry January, which has turned out to be easier than I feared - I am sleeping better, losing a little weight and I don't really miss it. Well, not much

So when I return to moderate drinking in February I plan to stick to abstinence, at least three days a week. But I also want to try out a herbal supplement called kudzu. Because, much to my surprise, it turns out that this ancient Chinese remedy for heart disease may also help us cut our alcohol consumption without really noticing it. 대단히 놀랍게도, 칡이라는 심장관련질병 치료제는 자신도 모르는 사이 음주량을 줄이는데 도움이 될 지 모른다.

Now, many of us make the resolution to cut back on alcohol, but like all good resolutions there is the danger of slippage. So for those of us with the modest aim of just cutting back a bit, could kudzu really help? To find out more the Trust Me I'm a Doctor team recently put it to the test. 음주를 줄이겠다는 결심은 많은 사람들이 작심삼일이 되는 위험이 있다.

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Image captionKudzu root 칡 뿌리

The Kudzu plant is a type of vine that is native to South East Asia. It's a plant with a long history, as Prof Elizabeth Williamson of the University of Reading, explains. 칡은 덩굴의 한 종류이다. 동아시아가 원생지다. 오랜 역사를 갖고 있다.

"Traditional uses, going back 2,000 years, were for things like coughs and colds and flu, and also for blood pressure, hypertension, angina. But it also has been used since at least AD600 for helping prevent alcohol abuse." 칡의 사용은 전통적으로 2천년의 역사를 갖고 있다. 기침, 감기, 플루, 혈압,  고혈압, 협심증에 쓰여왔다. 그러나 기원 후 600년 이후에는 알콜남용(숙취)을 방지하기 위해서도 쓰여기 시작했다.

I'm generally sceptical about herbal supplements. Even if the original plant has impressive health-giving properties, and many of our more effective medicines are derived from plants, that doesn't mean that supplements based on those plants will be effective. They rarely capture the complexity of a plant and there is so little regulation of the market that you literally don't know what you are buying. 난 일반적으로 약초의 보충역할에 회의적이다.

Nonetheless, there have been a few intriguing studies suggesting that after taking kudzu supplements people drink less, almost without noticing. 호기심을 자아내는 연구들이 몇 건 있었는데, 칡뿌리를 복용하면 모르는 사이 음주량을 줄일 수 있다는 점을 보여주었다.

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Find out more

Trust Me I'm A Doctor is on BBC Two at 20:00 on Wednesday 27 January - catch up on BBC iPlayer

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In a recent randomised placebo-controlled trial of 17 heavy-drinking American men, for example, they found that taking kudzu cut alcohol consumption by between 34% and 57%. 17명의 술 많이 마시는 미국인 17명을 놓고 최근 실시한 임의의 위(僞)약조절시도에서 칡뿌리를 복용한 뒤 음주량이 34%에서 57% 줄었다.

Intrigued, we decided to test kudzu in the wild, so to speak, with a group of Brits. 그래서 우리도 한 그룹의 영국인들을 대상으로 실험해보기로 했다.

So we recruited a group of volunteers from Reading willing to have two nights out in the name of science.

Two hours before starting we gave them pills - some got kudzu extract, others a placebo (a harmless sugar pill). None of them knew which they had just taken.

Then we allowed them access to the bar for 90 minutes, during which time they could have their fill of beer, wine or spirits. We were, of course, closely but surreptitiously monitoring how much and how quickly they drank.

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Kudzu 칡

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• Group of plants in the genus Pueraria, native to South East Asia, East Asia and some Pacific islands 갈근 속(屬)에 해당하는 식물들의 그룹, 동아시아와 일부 퍼시픽지역의 섬들이 원생지
• Used widely in the US in the 1930s and 40s as a way of controlling soil erosion, it is now considered an invasive species and has been the subject of a government programme to control its spread since the 1990s 토양침식을 억제하기 위한 방편으로 미국에서 1030년대와 1940년대 사용되었다. 지금은 이 식물이 땅을 잠식한다고 여겨져, 1990년대 이래 이 뿌리식물의 번식을 억제하기 위해 정부가 시행하는 프로그램의 주요 타켓이 되었다.
• Kudzu fibre is used in basketwork and its leaves as an animal feed; the starch from its root is widely used in Asian food

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Kudzu doesn't seem to alter the urge to drink, but rather how quickly you top yourself up. A recent study carried out in a lab of healthy male and female volunteers found that after taking a particular extract of the kudzu plant, called puerarin, people drank more slowly, taking more time between sips.

Puerarin is an isoflavone, a type of antioxidant. According to Dr David Penetar, a psychologist from Harvard Medical School who helped run that trial, it probably works by increasing blood flow to the brain. If the kudzu extract helps alcohol get to your brain's reward centre faster, then you will feel the effects sooner, which hopefully means you won't drink as much.

So what effect did kudzu extract have on our volunteers from Reading? Well, one week after their first fun-filled outing, our volunteers were back in the pub to repeat the experiment. Those who had had the placebo last time were given kudzu extract this time, and vice versa. Again, they didn't know which pills they'd taken, and we closely monitored what they drank.

At the end of the evening it was time to open the envelope and reveal the results.

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When our volunteers partied after having had a placebo they drank an average of seven units per person. When, however, they had taken the kudzu beforehand, they drank an average of 5.5 units, which meant that overall they had drunk about 20% less.

None of them had noticed any side effects from the kudzu, indeed none of them were aware when they had taken it.

But before you rush out to buy kudzu extract, there's a sting in this particular tale. Our test, and those carried out in the US, involved each person taking 500mg of the active ingredient. But we looked hard and we couldn't find any brands of kudzu available in the UK that have the government's THR mark, which guarantees that they actually contain what they say on the label.

We had kudzu extracts laboratory tested - and they didn't contain anything like the amount they said on the packet.

Tightly controlled studies on drinkers are just getting underway in the US. If they are successful kudzu could become a recommended treatment for heavy drinkers - but only when a standardised product is available.

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More from the Magazine

Michael Mosley has given up alcohol for January - but does anyone know exactly what effect drinking has on our health?

The truth about alcohol (8 January)

** 기사 요약 및 소감 **

1. 동아시아에서 칡을 사용한 역사는 2,000년 전으로 거슬러 올라간다. 칡의 용처는 기침, 감기, 플루, 혈압, 고혈압, 협심증, 숙취 예방. 요런 사실들은 본 기사를 통해 새로 알게 되었다.

2. 칡뿌리를 복용하면 음주량을 줄 일 수 있다는 일부 흥미로운 연구들이 있다.

3. 미국인들을 대상으로 한 실험과 영국인들을 대상으로 한 두 차례의 실험에서 참가자들의 음주의 양이 많이 줄어든 것으로 결과가 나오긴 했으나, 실험의 과학적 엄격성이 떨어지기 때문에 완전히 신뢰할 만한 수준은 아니라는 얘기다.