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Given that they’re such a widespread health phenomenon, it’s perhaps a bit surprising that scientists still don’t fully understand the causes of a hangover. (They do, however, have a scientific name for them: veisalgia.)
Because the ultimate cause of a hangover is, after all, alcohol, drinks that pack more alcohol into a smaller volume are naturally more likely to give you a hangover.
After having the same number of drinks, women are more likely to experience hangovers than men, though this simply seems to be a result of the fact that women generally have a lower body weight as well: If you control for body weight and compare a man and woman with the same blood alcohol content, their chances of a hangover are similar.
Well, according to various local legends, you can cure a hangover by eating shrimp (Mexico), pickled herring (Germany), pickled plums (Japan) or drinking coffee (U.S.), strong green tea (China) or tripe soup (Romania).
How to get rid of a hangover?
The most effective solution is also the most obvious: Don’t drink alcohol. Or, at the very least, don’t drink to excess. If you’re set on drinking a fair amount, though, there are certain things you can do to minimize your change of a hangover and the severity of its symptoms, and they’re all pretty intuitive.
You can lessen some of the symptoms with well-known over-the-counter drugs: non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, such as aspirin or ibuprofen (Advil), can treat headaches and other pain, while you can take stomach relief medicines (say, Tums or Pepto-Bismol) to reduce nausea.
One, for instance, found no correlation between high levels of the hormones associated with dehydration and the severity of a hangover. It’s most likely that dehydration accounts for some of the symptoms of a hangover (dizziness, lightheadedness and thirst) but that there are other factors at work as well.
As a result, excess buildup of acetaldehyde can happen quite rapidly. This is known to cause an immediate alcohol flush reaction ( colloqui ally known as “Asian glow”), but might also play a role in hang overs the day after drinking . There are other factors that affect who experiences hangovers most readily.
But this hypothesis, too, has been contradicted by data: In studies, people with severe hangovers weren’t found to have lower levels of electrolytes or glucose in their blood. The most compelling theory, at the moment, is that hangovers result from a buildup of acetaldehyde, a toxic compound, in the body.
Studies have shown that high-congener, darker-colored liquors like bourbon and whiskey lead to more severe hangovers than lighter-colored or clear liquors like vodka, which has none. A Dutch study systematically looked at the congener content and hangover risk of a variety of types of alcohol, producing the ranking above.
It’s far from clear why, after all traces of alcohol have been fully expelled from your body, you can still experience a load of awful symptoms, including headache, dizziness, fatigue, nausea, stomach problems, drowsiness, sweating, excessive thirst and cognitive fuzziness.
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