The reason hangovers make us feel so wretched
The pounding head. The parched mouth. And, worst of all, the crushing sense of anxiety as you cast your mind back to the night before and try to remember if you said or did anything awful.
Most of us have woken up with a hangover at some point and struggled through the day wondering how on Earth a few drinks can leave us feeling so wretched.
But the medical definition of a hangover has finally been settled by a German court, which last month ruled it should be classed as an official illness.
The case involved the makers of an anti-hangover shot (not identified), which claimed its product’s ‘‘plant extracts with antioxidants, electrolytes and vitamins’’ could cure the headaches and nausea associated with the morning after. The court declared that a hangover was an illness and, therefore, the shots were banned from making these claims.
In Germany, it is illegal to claim that supplements can cure illness or disease, which is defined as ‘‘any, even minor or transient, disturbance of the normal nature or normal activity of the body’’.
In February, a team of German scientists studying hangovers, writing in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found hangover prevention beliefs such as ‘‘beer before wine and you’ll feel fine’’ were scientifically unproven.
‘‘Given that hangovers cost the economy billions of pounds, they’re vastly under-researched and not very well understood,’’ says David Nutt, a professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, who has been studying hangovers for the past year.
‘‘If alcohol was invented today – and treated like a new food additive coming to the market – the recommended safe dose would be about a glass of wine a year. We’re very harsh on new food and drink meeting certain criteria, but we have a blind spot towards alcohol because it’s so embedded into our culture.
‘‘Economically, hangovers are an enormously important issue, but there’s little data around them. ’’
So what exactly is going on the morning after?
‘‘There’s dehydration,’’ says Nutt. ‘‘There’s inflammation of the brain, which is on a par with a bad cold or flu. The pumping headache is caused by an increase in blood pressure. In fact, incidences of strokes go up
If alcohol was invented today the recommended safe dose would be about a glass of wine a year.
on a Sunday and Monday due to weekend alcohol consumption.
‘‘And then there’s hangxiety – hang-over anxiety – which is due to something called Gaba [gamma-aminobutyric acid],’’ explains Nutt. ‘‘Alcohol targets the Gaba receptor, which sends messages through the brain and nervous system to inhibit the activity of nerve cells, which calms the brain. Alcohol stimulates Gaba, which is why you begin to unwind and feel happy when you drink.’’
After the first few drinks, you start blocking glutamate, which causes anxiety, and this leads to the devil-may-care stage that sees you buying another round and missing your last train.
However, the body registers these imbalances and begins to bring Gaba levels down and glutamate back up. So, overnight, the happy, carefree you in the pub becomes the anxious, mildly depressed one you see in the bathroom mirror the next morning.
‘‘Then there’s sleep,’’ continues Nutt. ‘‘After four hours of going to bed, withdrawal kicks in, so you don’t sleep particularly well.
‘‘Water before bed to stave off a hangover means getting up early to go to the lavatory, which affects sleep further. And a lack of sleep makes hangxiety worse.’’
Glutamate also plays a role in memory, and after around seven drinks the glutamate system is blocked. And if you can’t remember what you said in the pub, it further increases hangxiety.
So is there a cure? ‘‘The usual things, like spreading out your drinking and having water in between alcoholic drinks helps,’’ says Nutt. ‘‘Ibuprofen is better than paracetamol, because it’s anti-inflammatory.’’
Nutt also suggests addressing any social anxiety that may lead you to overdrink. He has also developed a drink called Alcarelle, which aims to take the good bits of alcohol, but without the harmful or hangover-inducing ones. And he says the ‘‘hair of the dog’’ is best avoided.