German court rules that hangovers are an 'illness'

A GERMAN COURT has said in a ruling that hangovers are an “illness”, in a timely judgement days after the annual Oktoberfest beer festival began in Munich.

The case landed before judges in Frankfurt when plaintiffs claimed a company offering anti-hangover “shots” and drink powders to mix with water was making illegal health claims.

“Information about a food product cannot ascribe any properties for preventing, treating or healing a human illness or give the impression of such a property,” the ruling from the superior regional court, which was published yesterday, read.

“By an illness, one should understand even small or temporary disruptions to the normal state or normal activity of the body” — including the tiredness, nausea and headaches the company claimed its product could polish off, they added.

Doctors have long since coined the word “veisalgia” as a specialist medical term for a hangover, the judges noted.

- © AFP 2019