The miserable hangover that follows a night of fun isn’t just a part of holiday celebrations, but can happen any time of year.
If you’re trying to ease the discomfort to come, research to be published in the March 2010 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research suggests that drinking bourbon brings more hangover pain than drinking vodka.
The reason is likely the materials used in the fermenting process (grains and wood casks) that produce small amounts of toxic byproducts known as congeners.
Bourbon naturally has 37 times as many congeners as vodka.
The researchers monitored 95 healthy heavy drinkers between the age of 21 to 33, both men and women, who lived in the Boston area.
None of them had been treated for alcohol related problems, and none had any sleep disorders either. Over the course of two overnight study sessions, the subjects drank vodka (100 proof Absolut) or bourbon (101 proof Wild Turkey) on one night, a placebo drink of caffeine free soda with no alcohol) on the second night.
The team measured breath alcohol concentration levels until all the participants had reached a reading that reflected inebriation.
The next morning the subjects were asked to rate their hangover in terms of how severe it was – little or no impact to incapacitating. Neuropsychological tests were done to assess the speed, vigilance and concentration skills of the subjects during the hangover period. The sleep quality during the previous night was also assessed.
The researchers found that drinking to inebriation brought cognitive impairment the next morning. Higher congener levels appeared to increase the intensity of the hangover – bourbon drinkers suffered more than vodka drinkers.
“The most important thing for people to realize is that if you’re feeling hungover, you’re probably impaired in terms of performing tasks that require vigilance and making quick decisions, ” cautioned Rohsenow.
Beyond the intensity of the hangover, higher congener levels didn’t lead to worse performance on cognitive tasks, or have any impact on the quality of sleep the night before.
Though they didn’t specifically explore how red wine might affect a hangover, study author Damaris J. Rohsenow, associate director of the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University believes this wine has more troublesome congeners than lighter varieties.
It would be safe to assume that red wine would make a hangover more painful, just as dark liquors do.
So if you do decide to indulge, and you want to avoid the hangover to follow, drinking in moderation is best. Experts suggest you choose your liquor with care – brandy is worst for hangovers, then in descending order red wine, rum, whisky, white wine, gin lastly vodka.
To avoid a hangover, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) tells us to…
- Drink slowly – one drink, or less, per hour
- Drink in moderation – that’s 12-ounce bottle of beer, a 4-ounce
glass of wine or a 1 1/2-ounce shot of hard liquor
- Drink on a full stomach
- Drink a glass of water between servings of alcohol
If you’ve already suffering from a hangover, rest is what you need – A lot of it.
Continues below…
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Want A Less Painful Hangover? Avoid Darker Liquors Continued…
Understand that alcohol is a drug, and when taken in excess, causes reactions within the body, filling it with toxins.
The natural reaction to this is for your body to try to metabolize the alcohol and get rid of the offending substances. It typically takes about 24 hours for this process. The simple passage of time is your best remedy. Here are some other things you might try to help yourself feel better…
- Ginger is a natural nausea treatment, so ginger ale is a good choice to sip; sports drinks are also good if you can tolerate them.
- Honey (natural source of fructose), lemon and hot water is a warming way to replace fluids.
- Try juices like orange if you can tolerate it, apple if you can’t.
- Plain toast, rice or clear soup are good starter foods once you can tolerate something to eat,
- Bananas replace potassium lost to alcohol and are easy on an unsettled stomach.
- An ice pack is super helpful for an aching head.
- Avoid medications with acetaminophen (like Tylenol) which can cause liver damage when combined with alcohol. Use another over the counter pain reliever instead.
Daily Health Bulletin
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