Destroy Hungover Mornings
Nishal Kumar
- We're not sure what's going on with Tesla but there's yet another former employee who's developed a cure for hangovers.
- Nishal Kumar is trying to produce his herbal remedy of FDA-approved ingredients in Canada, for distribution in the U.S.
- This hangover prevention remedy is also based on DHM, an ingredient from the oriental raisin tree. There's some scientific research showing that DHM does boost the liver's superpowers to deal with alcohol.
- Kumar tells us he doesn't know the other former Tesla engineer who developed another hangover remedy at about the same time.
There is another Tesla employees who has developed his own cure for hangovers, and who wants to manufacture the product for distribution in the Canada and the US.
Nishal Kumar, who studied geophysics at the University of British Columbia, worked for Tesla in sales and marketing for about two years, he tells Business Insider. He left that job in 2016 to take a job at a geophysics company, but his time at Tesla had a lasting effect. After talking to so many Tesla owners and potential owners, he kept hearing one complaint about its Model X SUV: it didn't have a coat hook to hang dry cleaning.
So he designed one. The hooks sold so well that he was able to launch his own company, EV Items, which now sells a handful of aftermarket products for Tesla vehicles. EV Items is not affiliated with Tesla ,but has done well enough that he was able to quit his geophysics job and buy his own Tesla, a Model 3, which actually does include coat hooks.
Amid all of his career moves, the 26-year-old like to spend his downtime enjoying a few drinks.
But he "started getting bad hangovers," he said, and they were interfering with his love of 6 a.m. workouts. He didn't want to give up socializing with friends. And he didn't want to give up his early morning exercise. So he turned to hangover remedies based on dihydromyricetin (DHM). That's an herbal compound that comes from the oriental raisin tree, said to boost the liver's superpowers to deal with alcohol.
DHM-based hangover recovery drinks are popular in Asia. And now a growing number of companies are developing them for the North American market.
But Kumar was confused by existing remedies. Sometimes they worked great. Other times, not so much. Some products were in pill form and they required taking up to six pills throughout the night.
Kumar says he went back to his roots in chemistry, which he studied when he was on a pre-med track before studying geophysics. And he contacted another of his pre-med college buddies. They studied the remedies used in drinks, including the extra ingredients like milk thistle (also supposed to be good for liver health) and vitamin B.
And they think they've come up with a hangover cure that has a better, more effective dose of the DHM and other ingredients.
He was trying to raise $15,000 on Kickstarter to fund the first large-scale production round, manufactured in Canada, and had raised $11,000, before Kickstarter suspended the campaign. Raising money for items promising cures based on supplements are not allowed on Kickstarter. (The unregulated dietary supplement market is notoriously sketchy.)
But now his campaign is on Indiegogo, trying to raise $20,000, and has already raised over $3,000 in its first couple of hours.
Interestingly, Kumar tells us that doesn't know Sisun Lee, the other ex-Tesla and Facebook engineer who was also working on a DHM hangover remedy at about the same time:.
Lee - who is also Canadian with a background in biotech, but who was working for Tesla in the San Francisco Bay Area - created a hangover drink called Morning Recovery. It was, at first, a side project after he discovered the hangover remedies during a visit to Korea, where such drinks are popular.
Unbeknownst to him, Lee's creation wound up being posted on Product Hunt, where people overwhelmed him asking for it. With that much interest, he got serious. He began working with a well-known scientist on a formula. His project went crazy on Indigogo, too, and after he was able to mass produce his drink, he quit Tesla to work on it full time. He's since landed $10 million in venture funds is running his company from Los Angeles and is doing well.
There is some science to back the assertion that DHM will prevent a hangover. It's been an herbal remedy for thousands of years in Asia.
However, like all supplements, it's not that straightfoward. When Business Insider did our own non-scientific test of two popular remedies, Morning Recover and Flyby, we were pleased with the results, but not entirely ready to claim that these drinks were miracle cures.
Still, in addition to making electric cars fast and cool, and reinvigorating the solar power market, it looks like Tesla has also inspired a boom in hangover cure innovation. Go figure.
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