52 replies to this topic

[AVV IT]

A hangover is basically a combination of three things, hypoglycaemia (low circulating blood glucose caused by the alcohol breaking down the blood sugar in your blood stream), dehydration (low levels of water in the blood stream and tissues as a result of the body trying to process and break down the alcohol and expel it from the body) and low sodium/mineral levels (mainly due to the salt lost by the body trying to expel the broken down alcohol).

All hangover cures therefore only work because they address these problems in some way. Coke or other soft drinks work because their water content helps to rehydrate the body and due to their high sugar content that replaces the lost glucose/sugar. (People tend to prefer drinking them flat though as the absence of bubbles is often kinder on a hungover stomach.) Greasy food such as fried bacon and sausages works not because of the fat, but because of the high salt content that is usually present in fatty foods. Coffee only appears to work as the caffeine acts as a temporary stimulant, it is best avoided though as caffeine itself has to be broken down by the body like alcohol does and therefore causes further dehydration and actually makes matters worse.

The most effective cure is to concentrate on what the body is missing and therefore drink water with sugar and salt dissolved in it. Something I learned from a a group of medical students many years ago was that you can often avoid a hangover completely if before bed you drink two pints of water with a table spoon of sugar and a teaspoon of table salt dissolved in each.

Unconscious drunks that are taken into A&E on a Friday & Saturday night are usually treated with10% glucose solution (sugar dissolved in water) and 0.9% saline solution (salt dissolved in water) that is put directly into their blood stream via a drip. You would be amazed at how much better they look in the morning compared to their mates who have been sitting in the A&E waiting room drinking coffee all night!

Edited by AVV IT, 20 August 2011 - 03:46 PM.

[drewsargent1980]

I find recieving an Invoice from my Mini restorer is a good hang over cure, certainly made me soon forget about mine any way lol

[morley]

i find drinking a pint or 2 of water before you go to bed and when you wake up a pack of bacon goes down well!

[Mini Mad Drakeley]

anyone know how to not be sick after a night out though? happens way to often with me

[M J W J]

When I was younger, I never used to get a hangover despite what i drank. I had quickly figured out that two of the main causes for hangovers are dehydration and low blood sugar. What I used to do when I came in from the pub/party/whatever was to drink a pint of cold water, then make sure I reduced the amount of insulin I gave myself before bed. Never had a problem. Is this cheating?

Good point if you are diabetic is forget the insulin when eating breakfast the next morning or you will go hypo.

My suggestions. Drink water and my mums Sunday roast. Doesn't matter how hung over (or still drunk) I am I can always stomach a roast.

I would avoid spoons though. I have never felt so ill in my life after getting food from there. I spent all day monday hurling up after I had dinner there the night before. I was only on the fifth bottle of staropramen as well.

[M J W J]

anyone know how to not be sick after a night out though? happens way to often with me

Drink less?

My friends and I used to just keep drinking until we hurled up. We grew up and stopped it though as it got expensive replacing clothes. Avoid mixing drinks as well. If you start on beer stay with beer.

[AVV IT]

Avoid mixing drinks as well. If you start on beer stay with beer.

This is a popular myth that has little scientific basis. Mixing drinks makes absolutely no difference as to how ill you will become or how drunk you might get. Alcohol is alcohol and whether the drink it is floating around in is derived from grains (beer & whisky etc), or fruit (cider & wine etc) is really of no consequence. If it was then you wouldn't be able to mix these food groups when eating either, making it impossible to eat jam sandwiches or fruit cake without vomiting!!

Vomiting often occurs due to the stomach lining being irritated by the large quantities of alcohol being absorbed through it. The best advise is therefore to either drink less, pace yourself and drink more slowly or to ensure that alcoholic drinks are regularly interspersed with food, so that the food in your stomach absorbs some of the alcohol and that the body therefore absorbs it more slowly. Alcohol also causes blood vessels to relax and dilate, thereby directing blood away from the bodies central organs to the surface of the skin. If enough alcohol is consumed and enough blood is directed away from the stomach, its contents cannot be absorbed and therefore the body will expel it all by inducing vomiting. Alcohol also relaxes the "cardiac sphincter" which is basically the muscular valve at the top of the stomach that keeps the contents of your stomach inside your stomach, so basically if you drink enough alcohol you will always throw up eventually!!

[mini_mad69]

Avv it. Can I ask how you know all that?

It's without a doubt something im going to try. I was going to give up drinking, just because I can't function the next day. But thinking about it, im always soooo much better when I have food the night before.

[AVV IT]

Partly from being an accomplished drinker ...... but the majority of it is gleaned from being in the enviable position of having to deal with drunks for a living!!

Edited by AVV IT, 20 August 2011 - 10:00 PM.

[Dan]

Flat coke or fresh orange with salt in always works very quickly, pretty much as said above. Drinking coffee doesn't dehydrate you though, this is a popular myth. Even if you are dehydrated already or suffering from an alcohol overdose at the time, there is still far more water in a cup of coffee than your body will use processing the caffeine in that same cup. Even if it's an esspresso. The mechanism by which alcohol dehydrates you is far more complex and it attacks you on every level, caffeine is far more simple for your body to deal with and you also consume far less of it. The lethal dose of caffeine is 1oz so there really is hardly any in a coffee. It also makes you feel better because it has an analgesic as well as stimulant effect, which is why it's in so many flu remedies now.
Eating with drink is good not because it lines your stomach as people think but because when you consume solids the sphincter that releases food from your stomache into your intestine closes. If you just consume liquids it opens fully, as the stomach plays no part in digesting liquid. But if you take in solids the stomach has to start breaking things down and processing the solids into liquid so the sphincter closes to allow the stomach to work. The alcohol stays in your stomach for longer along with the food and is then slowly released into the intestine where it is absorbed.

[Black.Ghost]

Interesting topic.

Avv It - while scientifically there may not be a basis for saying mixing drinks is a bad thing, in practice it's completely different. Everyone reacts differently to different things, and therefore for some people I would suggest that mixing probably is a bad thing. Some people can drink lots of spirits, and other people get far more drunk on spirits than they do beer. I know there are a lot of factors. Even the mood someone is in can affect how people behave and react when drinking.

Personally, I never used to get hangovers. I have started suffering sometimes now, but still not as bad as some of my mates. My biggest problem, however, is memory loss. I have had it after just 6 pints before. Dealing with hangovers, I think, is a lot in the attitude. If you wake up the next day feeling rough and start feeling sorry for yourself it's a lot worse than if you get up and try to ignore it and carry on.

And remember, alcohol doesn't cause hangovers - waking up does. Unfortunately, I never tend to sleep much when I've been drinking a lot.

The absolute best thing to do is just get back on it.

[AVV IT]

Avv It - while scientifically there may not be a basis for saying mixing drinks is a bad thing, in practice it's completely different. Everyone reacts differently to different things, and therefore for some people I would suggest that mixing probably is a bad thing. Some people can drink lots of spirits, and other people get far more drunk on spirits than they do beer. I know there are a lot of factors. Even the mood someone is in can affect how people behave and react when drinking.

Yes a lot of people believe that they get more drunk on certain drinks than others, but this is largely psychological and probably based on the popular myth that certain alcoholic drinks make you more drunk than others. Alcohol is just like any other drug in that it's physical effects are based on the quantity of the drug consumed and not on the type of solution that it is diluted in, although arguably the decrease in water volume that is consumed when drinking spirits as opposed to when drinking beer will contribute to the bodies level of dehydration and therefore could have a limited effect.

But then as you have also suggested, attitude can have a significant effect on a lot of things and if you genuinely believe that drinking spirits will make you more drunk than drinking beer, then you probably will feel more drunk when drinking them. In the same way that if you believe that you are likely to have a bad hang over then you probably will have a bad one. The other issue is that intoxication can be a psychological state as well as a physical one. Drunken behaviour is not always directly related to the actual level of physical intoxication, in that if an intoxicated person suddenly receives bad or serious news, then they often appear to suddenly sober up (hence the phrase "sobering thought"). Physically the person is actually no less intoxicated than before though, as the only physical way to sober up is for the liver to break down the alcohol volume in the blood over time.

It also is true that there are a number of other factors that affect intoxication, things such as general state of health, level of liver function, presence of other drugs, tolerance, level of hydration and fatigue. Existing mood is relevant as alcohol is essentially a sedative that depresses the nervous system, therefore there are likely to be greater effects on a nervous system that is already depressed.

Edited by AVV IT, 21 August 2011 - 09:22 AM.

[M J W J]

Avv it. I never said by avoiding mixing drinks that you get less drunk. It was a suggestion that you are less likely to feel ill if you don't mix drinks. From personal experience I have usually been ill when I have mixed drinks.

[minisilverbullet]

I tend to stick to German Beers.

Reinheitsgebot or the "german purity law" states that beer produced in germany must only contain the following: Water, yeast, malted barley or malted wheat. So no preservatives, taste enhancers, colours or added chemicals etc. My theory being that, your body only need to deal with the pure ingredients of german beers and not the other crap you may find in the leading brands. Dont get me wrong your still get a hangover, just not as intense.

while on the subject; other alcoholoic beverages are also said to give worse hangover s than others. As pointed out above this is nothing to do with the alcohol, but concerns the other ingredients. Take cheap red wine form the mass produced brands. The wine they sell must taste the same in each bottle. Now this is impossible when you are collecting huge amount of grapes, which are grown in different climates each year. To combat this the wine makers add ingredients so that each bottle of wine (irrespective of year) tastes exactly the same. The alcohol gives you the hangover but the other crap they put in also contributes.

[AVV IT]

Avv it. I never said by avoiding mixing drinks that you get less drunk. It was a suggestion that you are less likely to feel ill if you don't mix drinks. From personal experience I have usually been ill when I have mixed drinks.

Yes I know and hence why I said:

Mixing drinks makes absolutely no difference as to how ill you will become or how drunk you might get.

and also why I then went onto give a lengthy explanation as to why mixing different alcoholic drinks does not make you vomit!

I merely mentioned that mixing drinks does not have any effect on how drunk you get either, because this is another popular myth that some one was bound to mention.... and low and behold someone then did!!

Edited by AVV IT, 21 August 2011 - 05:37 PM.