Drinking caffeine or taking aspirin are trusted home remedies for the post-drinking blues.

So what about a hangover pill that combines both? Enter Blowfish, a pill produced by Rally Labs.

Each two-pill dose of Blowfish contains 1000 milligrams of aspirin and 120 milligrams of caffeine, according to the pill’s website. The user takes Blowfish the morning after drinking alcohol, dropping the pills in a glass of 16 ounces of water. The pills dissolve, and the person drinks up.

“It’s not a new concept,” said Merrill Norton, clinical associate professor at the University’s College of Pharmacy. “People have used aspirin and cappuccino for years.”

Blowfish is out as a hangover cure, but has not gained the approval of the FDA. FILE/ The Red & Black

But Blowfish hasn’t gained the approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In December 2011, Blowfish made news headlines because it claimed to be FDA-approved.

A list of the FDA’s approved drug products doesn’t include Blowfish, which was created by a graduate of Harvard Business School who “worked my way through every hangover remedy I could find” to create her product, according to Blowfish’s website.

“FDA has not approved and will not approve it,” Norton said. “Pharmacies do not carry anything that’s not FDA-approved, so you find it in herbal stores and Golden Pantries and those sorts of situations.”

The University Health Center Pharmacy does not plan on carrying Blowfish, said Deanna Walters, alcohol and other drug prevention coordinator for the Health Center.

Blowfish claimed FDA support because its active ingredients – aspirin and caffeine – have separately been approved by the agency. But just like the pills, Blowfish’s claim sinks in water, Norton said.

Medicines combining ingredients need to undergo the FDA approval procedure because of any other ingredients added to the medication, he said.

“If the company brings in another ingredient, it has to go through the process again,” Norton said.

FDA approval for a drug is significant, he said.

Norton listed three ways the FDA looks out for consumers.

The agency protects people from drug-to-drug interactions, which are the effects of a drug when administered at the same time as another drug.

“They can be very deadly,” Norton said.

The FDA also studies preventable adverse drug effects. Blowfish lists stomach bleeding among its warnings.

The third way Norton listed among FDA’s benefits is the agency finds out if a drug does what it claims to do. In order for Blowfish to be approved, it would have to undergo clinical trials.

“Once they have that report, they’ll have science behind the information,” Norton said.

As for using Blowfish for the next drinking session, Norton expressed doubts over its effectiveness.

“As a clinical pharmacist, I don’t know the absorption, I don’t know the adverse drug affects,” Norton said. “I have no science that says this works.”

He said drinking the glass of water with the pill would be a better hangover remedy than either the aspirin or caffeine. Hangovers occur because of dehydration.

“The thing that probably works more than anything else is the water,” Norton said. “That’s what alcohol does. It dehydrates you.”

Maybe a cure-all hangover pill is still a myth, but Norton said the availability of Blowfish would lead some students to drink greater amounts of alcohol.

“When people have less consequences, whether it’s drug or alcohol use, they’ll drink more,” he said. “That’s a personal choice.”

Richard Kimmel, a junior majoring in consumer economics from Cochran, said he doesn’t think students would drink more because of the availability of a hangover pill.

“I really don’t think it would be an issue,” Kimmel said. “I think some people would think it promotes drinking more with students. I don’t think it would cause them to drink more.”

If anything, some students would be skeptical of claims of a banished hangover, he said.

“It’s kind of a novel idea, so I think people would be interested in trying to see if it works,” Kimmel said.

Norton imparted two words of advice for anyone interested in taking Blowfish – “buyer beware.”

“You take it at your own risk,” he said. “There’s no science in the product. They just had a good idea and put it on the market.”