Eating to Prevent a Hangover

Docteur Dissequomme

Eating while you drink, or drinking a glass of water between every alcoholic drink, is commonly believed to prevent hangovers. Doctors, though, say this is only partially true. Eating, and drinking nonalcoholic beverages, does provide the body with nutrients that may be depleted by alcohol, and preventing those nutrients (such as sodium, potassium, glucose, and water) from being depleted can help to eliminate some of the sources of hangover misery. But eating will not prevent all the effects of a hangover.

Using Food and Nonalcoholic Drinks to Prevent a Hangover

Method

• Eat before and during the time period when you are drinking alcoholic beverages.
• Drink a glass of water, or some other nonalcoholic beverage, between alcoholic drinks.

Why It Works

The misery of a hangover has several components. Alcohol is a diuretic – it draws fluid into the bladder, causing the body to lose fluid as urine and become dehydrated. Dehydration can cause headaches, shakiness, and nausea. Alcohol depletes the body’s supplies of salt and potassium, which can cause shakiness and nausea. In addition, alcohol depletes the liver’s supply of glucogen, converting it into glucose, which is released into the blood and then into the urine. This means that a person with a hangover may wake up with low blood sugar, which can cause shakiness and nausea. Consequently, some hangover symptoms can be avoided by making sure that the body has enough fluid, that blood sugar levels do not fall, and that depleted electrolytes are replaced as they get used up.

Eating and drinking will not entirely prevent a hangover, however. No matter how much food and nonalcoholic fluid you consume, your liver will still have to metabolize the alcohol that you drink. Each person’s ability to metabolize liquor varies, but on average, the liver can metabolize an ounce of alcohol per hour. As it metabolizes alcohol, it converts it to acetylaldehyde, which causes nausea, vomiting, and sweating. Eventually, the liver metabolizes the acetylaldehyde into acetate, which is harmless. If you have been drinking a very dark alcohol, such as red wine (especially cheap red wine), brandy, or port, the liver will also have to metabolize the preservatives in the wine, and the preservatives in darker alcoholic beverages are metabolized not into acetylaldehyde, as alcohol is, but into formaldehyde (embalming fluid). Cheap red wine, whisky, and fruit brandy also commonly contain methanol, which is broken down by the liver into formic acid – which, coincidentally, is a poison that ants spray at their attackers. As long as you have formaldehyde and formic acid circulating throughout your body, you are likely to feel terrible, experiencing nausea, vomiting, shakes, muscle aches, and other symptoms of toxicity. You are experiencing what it feels like to be poisoned, because you have been. If you consume foods or beverages that are high in fructose, you can increase the rate at which your liver metabolizes alcohol, so that acetylaldehyde and formaldehyde leave your body about 25 percent faster. But the hangover will not be eliminated – it will simply pass more quickly.

Precautions

Food and nonalcoholic beverages are completely safe to try. At worst, you may gain weight or increase your blood sugar or cholesterol levels more than is healthy.

More Remedies

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