A hormone shot helped drunk mice sober up quickly

The finding hints at a possible treatment for alcohol poisoning

photo of a mouse standing on its hind legs in a glass bowl and peering over the edge

A hormone made by the liver helps drunk mice sober up.

Fernando Trabanco Fotografía/Moment/Getty Images Plus

The only cure to being drunk is to wait it out. But that might not always be the case: Injecting drunk mice with a naturally occurring hormone helped them sober up more quickly than they otherwise would have, a new study shows.

Mice that received a shot of FGF21 — a hormone made by the liver — woke up from a drunken stupor roughly twice as fast as those that didn’t, researchers report in the March 7 Cell Metabolism.