When was the last time you had a hangover? Do you remember the long hours of dizziness, painful headaches and, if you really had fun the night before, nausea? Perhaps you swore to never drink again. If you have allergies, you may be at a disadvantage, as it is said that people allergic to wheat, barley, corn, or yeast often have the worst hangovers. Luckily, a new process has been found to take the morning-after blues out of drinking.
Ethanol dries up the water from your body as it breaks down, causing headache, dry mouth and lethargy. Alcohol is a diuretic, draining the water from your digestive system, eventually dehydrating your brain as well. The headaches you have after heavy drinking are due to your dehydrated brain starting to shrink away from the inside of your skull, as this space is normally filled with fluid.
The reason you become nauseous after excessive alcohol consumption is the increased production of alcohol dehydrogenase, the enzyme that breaks down alcohol. As alcohol dehydrogenase builds up, it may slow down the glucose production in your liver, which in turn causes low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) that prevents your stomach from functioning as it normally does. Since the liver is producing an increased amount of enzymes to break down the alcohol, there will not be enough glucose to reach your brain, which results in fatigue, moodiness and listlessness.
Sounds awful, right? A possible solution to the problem has been proposed by Korean scientists, who published their findings in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. Based on the fact that alcohol is processed via alcohol oxidation and aided by oxygen intake as you breathe in, scientists found that increasing the dissolved oxygen levels in alcohol can help reduce its negative effects. Dr. Hye Gwang Jeong, a professor in the College of Pharmacy at Chungnam National University, said, “Several studies have indicated that high-oxygen water can enhance the survival ability of mice, fatigue recovery, and anoxia endurance function.”
This finding has led Dr. Jeong and his colleagues to investigate the effect of high-oxygen alcohol on hangover recovery time in humans. They conducted an experiment with fifty volunteers, which compared metabolism rates of alcohol with 8 ppm and 20 ppm dissolved oxygen concentrations. The results showed that elevated oxygen concentrations shorten the time to reach 0% blood alcohol concentration by 20%. Professor Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians and chairman of the Alcohol Health Alliance, illustrates the significance of these findings with the following example: “If you had two pints of (oxygen-rich) beer, you would clear it from the body in three and a half hours rather than four”.
Besides real-life significance, this finding has clinical importance because the reduced time required to reach 0% blood alcohol concentration may help reduce the number of alcohol-related accidents.
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here is another far more effective strategy to avoid the effects of alcohol intoxication
stop drinking and, in the process, grow up
Oh shut up.
i second bob.
moderation for all things.
drink some water before you go to bed.