Amalia Rubin has certainly been in this predicament. She’s a 37-year-old PhD student based in Nepal studying Himalayan societies, languages, and cultures. She's also a digital creator, having amassed over 135K followers on TikTok and over 22K on Instagram .
In July, Amalia posted a video on both platforms, and it took off. It's now gained over 1.5 million views on TikTok , and some of the many comments on the Instagram version have amassed tens of thousands of likes.
In the video, she discusses a potential method for stopping food-borne illness before it starts using — yes — hard liquor. Amalia told BuzzFeed how she came to know, and later research, the practice: "Many years ago, while visiting rural Kyrgyzstan, I got a bit sick to my stomach, and to my surprise, my friend took me to a pharmacy where they poured me a little cup of vodka," she said. "One thing I've learned from world travel is not to just immediately dismiss it, so I wondered if there was any scientific research to the idea of alcohol creating a hostile environment for bacteria.
I was also curious because of how many cultures have after-dinner drinks as alleged digestive aids." I wanted some answers, so I asked a gastroenterologist and the answer is: Kind of. Maybe.
She has some thoughts about the claim that ingesting alcohol might be able to prevent food-borne illness: If you were hoping to use this as a fail-safe, she's got some bad news, and it starts with the 2002 study that Amalia cited in her video.
