German court rules that hangovers are an illness
A German court has ruled that hangovers are an 'illness', in a judgement just days after the annual beer festival Oktoberfest kicked off.
A case was a taken to a court in Frankfurt after a firm was accused of making illegal health claims about anti-hangover shots and drink powders.
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The court ruled that illnesses include even 'temporary disruptions' to the body's normal functioning state, including tiredness and nausea - which the company claimed its products could cure.
It ruled that since a hangover - or kater in German - was technically an illness, the company could not claim to heal it.
Food products and drinks could not be advertised as 'preventing, treating or healing a human illness', the superior regional court ruled on Monday.
'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.
'By an illness, one should understand even small or temporary disruptions to the normal state or normal activity of the body,' the ruling added.
The ruling came just days after the 186th Oktoberfest began on Saturday in Munich.
Around 7.5million litres of beer are guzzled by 6 million beer lovers over 18 days at the festival which concludes on October 6.
