There is only one real cure for a hangover: Death.
So like a lot of you, I like a little bit of a drink from time to time
but I feel it the morning after man, why did I text her, what was I doing?
Who was I talking to?
Why do I feel so rough?
You guessed it, a hangover.
What is it? and why do we get them?
And the question is, can we actually avoid a hangover?
So it's pretty obvious, don't drink, avoid that booze, don't get lost in the sauce
but realistically, that's not going to work is it?
Whether it's a dry mouth, the headaches, the nausea, them horrible shakes
we're all too familiar of the after effects of a serious drink up.
I suffer badly in the morning,
I don't do hangovers really too well at all.
I've had hangovers that lasted three days before
and still never thought to myself, I'm not doing that again.
My solution is usually just lie in bed and pull the blinds down.
So people have been debating this for years and years and years
and everyone has their own idea of what a hangover is
one thing that keeps on coming up is dehydration
and actually, when you think about it, there's some logic to this.
So alcohol, like tea or coffee is what we call a diuretic,
which means it makes you pee more and so you're losing fluid, hence
getting more dehydrated.
So a lot of people think these symptoms are due to dehydration.
The question is, are hangovers just dehydration?
Doctors Chris and Xand van Tulleken decided to put their bodies and their
livers on the line to test this, all in the name of science.
So here's what we're going to do this evening
you are going to drink the same amount of liquid as me
you can drink for every vodka and orange I have
you're going to have an orange topped up with a shot of water
so through the evening and all through the night, we're going to collect our urine
and I reckon we'll pee exactly the same amount.
How are we going to collect the urine?
Well, funny you should ask.
Funny you should ask.
We're going to use these.
And before you guys ask me
no, do not try this at home.
Come on, guys.
These are medical professionals.
So that's a pretty straightforward experiment to put it to the test,
comparing the same amount of liquid intake, just one alcohol, one not alcohol
There you go.
I mean, twenty one shots versus three shots
surely there's only one winner, right?
We should go dancing, we could go for a little dance!
You don't remember any of this?
And how do you feel today?
Dry as a bone.
So who peed the most?
Wow, I mean, they look exactly the same, have you weighed them?
In fact, two point eight litres for me and two point seven litres for you.
So I'm more dehydrated.
That is absolutely astounding.
I feel incredibly dehydrated,
I feel like that's my problem and I'm wrong...
So this may only be a simple test with two people, however, the results are kind of surprising.
So clearly, dehydration is only a really small part of the story when it comes to a hangover.
So the question is, what actually is hangover?
Now to take a look at what goes on in our bodies that makes us feel so rough and lousy
we actually have to investigate exactly how the alcohol reacts with our blood.
We find that the blood test from the binge shows that there is a lot of inflammation in the blood
a bit like having a very mild cold or a flu
and I think when people think about it, when you have a very mild flu,
it feels quite a bit like a hangover.
That inflammation can affect the brain and make you feel slow and have a headache
and all the symptoms of a hangover.
Inflammation is a sign that the body's immune system is actually reacting to something foreign.
In this case it's the by-product of alcohol, acetaldehyde.
When we drink large amounts of booze our bodies respond
to this nasty poisonous by-product the acetaldehyde
and actually act as if we're having a mild flu
and this is why we experience some of these side effects and symptoms.
So if it's this chemical causing us all these issues, something that we can all break down,
why do some people get worse hangovers?
The question is, can we actually avoid a hangover?
So we all know that annoying person the next morning
that just jumps out of bed like a jack-in-the box
and you're asking yourself, do they experience hangovers like we do,
or are they just coping with it better?
For that, we need to look at our genetics.
Well, it turns out that we can all have quite different reactions when it
comes to alcohol.
After half pint, I'll start to feel the effect kicking in
my eyes, get red, my arms, my neck gets red too,
continuous headache throughout the day.
On any social event, I'll go out and I will have easily four, five, six, seven, eight, nine pints.
No real hangover, no real effects.
So alcohol is actually broken down in our bodies by an enzyme into acetaldehyde
that nasty stuff, yeah, I know.
And then further broken down by another enzyme into carbon dioxide and water.
And so what comes into play is that different people have different levels
of these enzymes in their body
and this comes down to genetics.
We can clearly explain these different experiences with alcohol on the basis
of genetic variation.
And you can avoid many things in life but you cannot avoid your genetics.
Joe, this is where you have a variation in your genes
that means that you don't get rid of the acetaldehyde
which is what we're seeing, right now looking at you.
So some people have lower levels of this enzyme in their body,
so they have trouble getting rid of the acetaldehyde, the nasty stuff,
and so experience the effects a bit worse.
This is living genetics, this is a great example
and I think, you know, what Joe's body is doing is telling him to stop drinking
and what we see in people with that slow gene is that if they carry
on drinking through it for social pressures, despite the side effects,
then they are putting themselves more at risk of liver disease.
Other people who can break down this dangerous stuff a little bit more quickly
can actually drink without getting the effects of a hangover.
However, the body uses the hangover as a sign to tell you that, hey,
your liver is taking in a lot of alcohol and maybe you slow it down a little bit.
The alcohol is still being broken down by the liver and the breakdown products
of the alcohol are what's causing the damage to the liver tissue
So there are many different theories about a hangover,
dehydration, this and that, different types of booze
but it all comes down to our genetics and our enzymes,
and thing we need to remember about a hangover is,
is it's not always a bad thing,
sometimes your body's just telling you chill out bro, take it a little bit easy.