Yvan De Baets, owner of "Brasserie de la Senne", pours a beer at his brewery in Brussels on Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2016. (Photo: AP)

BERLIN, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- Manufacturers of dietary supplements may not advertise that their products can help treat or prevent hangovers, the German Higher Regional Court (OLG) in Frankfurt ruled on Monday.

The court said that hangovers were an "illness" and dietary supplements may thus not be advertised as preventing hangovers or reducing the symptoms because of a "prohibition of assigning illness-referred characteristics to food."

The defendant in the case had distributed two dietary supplements and advertised that "with our anti-hangover drink you supply your body with natural, antioxidant plant extracts, electrolytes and vitamins."

Symptoms of a hangover, such as fatigue, nausea and headache, would "not occur as a result of the natural up and down of the body, but as a result of the consumption of alcohol, a harmful substance," the court explained.

According to the court, it is not decisive that the symptoms regularly disappear by themselves and do not require medical treatment. In the interest of "health protection that is as effective as possible," the term "illness" should be interpreted broadly, it said.