Like roommate disputes and the stress of the first round of prelims each semester, the hangover ranks among the most painful and prevalent college experiences.

It seems to me that everyone has their own, unique morning-after cure when rest and water won’t do the trick. (How I Met Your Mother fans might recall Lily ordering a greasy tuna melt and Ted ordering gravy to ease their hangover woes.) But hold on to your greasy pizza and bagels, Cornellians, because researchers at the Institute of Medical Science and Jeju National University in South Korea have scientifically proven that one food reduces hangover symptoms and decreases liver damage – asparagus.

Asparagus has been cultivated for over 2,000 years and has been dubbed the “Food of Kings” because King Louis XIV of France loved the vegetable so much that he built greenhouses to harvest it year-round. Various parts of the plant, including the root and shoots, have been rumored since Greek and Roman times to have medicinal properties in promoting liver, kidney, bladder, and heart health and more recently, in alleviating hangovers.

A study published in late August by the Journal of Food Science presented biochemical evidence supporting the home hangover remedy.

In ethanol metabolism, ethanol is first converted by the liver enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) to an intermediate compound, acetaldehyde, which is further broken down by acetaldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) to nontoxic acetate. In order to detoxify the bloodstream from alcohol consumption, the liver must remove ethanol and acetaldehyde quickly. In fact, excess acetaldehyde build up contributes to the sweating, nausea, and vomiting recognized as a hangover. Other pathways are used to metabolize excess alcohol when the concentration is too high for ADH enzymes alone to process; these include ethanol oxidation, which can generate highly reactive oxygen compounds that damage liver cells.

The study demonstrated that ADH and ADLH activities were more than twice as high when liver cells were treated with asparagus leaf or shoot extracts than with no treatment. This means that alcohol is metabolized more quickly and the quantity of the acetaldehyde intermediate is reduced, alleviating hangover symptoms making it less likely for hangover symptoms to occur. Also, with increased ADH and ADLH activity, less ethanol is being broken down by the oxygen-radical producing processes of ethanol oxidation. This stimulation of liver enzyme activity reduces the potential for the harmful consequences of oxidation in the liver.

The study indicated that not only does asparagus promote less-toxic means of alcohol metabolism, but that asparagus can counteract the production of toxic oxygen species through other metabolic pathways. Extracts from asparagus leaves and shoots were shown to exhibit antioxidant activity, meaning they can eliminate excesses of reactive oxygen compounds that normally cause toxic oxidative changes and contribute to liver disease with chronic alcohol use. Researchers suspect that this strong antioxidant activity may prevent long-term liver disease and damage.

But don’t run for the supermarket yet. Although both asparagus leaves and shoots were determined to have positive effects on alcohol metabolism, the study demonstrated that asparagus leaves, which we don’t often see on supermarket shelves, have greater protective effects against alcohol toxicity than the asparagus shoots that are sold for dietary consumption. These parts of the plant also have higher concentrations of proteins, carbohydrates, and minerals.

Either way, we could all use a little more asparagus in our lives.