Powdered Booze Helps Fix Clogged Arteries

Diets that consist a lot of fats and cholesterol build up along the blood vessels, and eventually limits the flow of blood that can be pumped by the heart. These unhealthy diets are what causes hundreds and thousands of heart attacks and strokes all over the world. To treat these conditions, Americans have to take maintenance drugs every day, and in 2014, the most common of these drugs - statins - alone cost around $13 billion in the economy.

However, scientists have discovered a new compound that can help lessen the risk of such ailments. In a study published in Science Translational Medicine, researchers found a compound called the beta-cyclodextrin, which are drugs that can bind to fatty acids where they are most needed.

But what is the beta-cyclodextrin? Good news for avid drinkers - it is the main ingredient used to make powdered alcohol.

To come to this conclusion, the researchers fed mice with a cholesterol-heavy diet for three months, which is enough to give the subjects fatty plaques in their blood vessels. Eight weeks after, they started injecting cyclodextrin to the mice twice each week. In the last four weeks of their experiment, they found that the compound reduced the fatty plaques by 46 percent without affecting overall cholesterol level. This led them to think that cyclodextrin merely boosts the activity of mactrophages, which helps them attack excess cholesterol.

Popular Science noted that researchers are not yet sure how the cyclodextrin is able to reduce the plaques - at this point, more experiments and further analysis are needed. More clinical trials and studies will be needed to make sure that the compound will have the same effect to humans as it did to animals, but it seems that results are promising.

Cyclodextrin may be the main ingredient in powdered alcohol, but before you go on and get them by the mouthful, the Associated Press reported that powdered alcohol is illegal in several states including Missouri, Idaho, and California, who all just recently passed the ban on these products.