Sure 'nuf DQ.
Many liver protection compounds are anti-oxidants. Take NAC, N-acetylcysteine, the precursor to glutathione, also known as GSH, the true workhorse antioxidant in the body.
Now you should have in place before you go out drinking, hours before. You take it afterwards, thinking, its good karma, help protect againt ethanol induced liver damage...
Wrong! Its busy dealing with the enthanol itself, and that turns the NAC from what we call reduced, to an oxidized state, where it can work against you, causing damage to membranes, enzymes, DNA.
When you take the antioxidant after the toxin is in the liver, its twice as bad as if you'd just let things be. Twice the damage, first from the alcohol and then from the the disabled antioxidant, which is swamped by the sheet volume of alcohol there ahead of it.. If its in place before hand, with a compound like vitamin C to regenerate it, hunky dory, it can keep up with the joneses and keep ethanol damage to a minimum, if you have enough.
See, its the ethanol metabolites in liver that chemically kick your ass, orI should say, that of your gluthione, and its the latter that blocks alcohol metabolites from doing the dirty work in destroying liver cells.
Worse than shutting the barn door after the horses done bolted, if you try to stop em by shootin' at em as they take off!
