To Your Health!

The Morning After
Did I Really Only Have Three Drinks?
© 2000 by Dr. Randy Buckner
We have all done it at one time or another, inadvertently or not. We overindulged at a party, be it New Years Eve, St. Patrick's Day, a new promotion or just because it's Saturday. One or two social drinks, then by the end of the evening, you lose count with all of the merriment. The euphoria lasts until daybreak, when the morning-after hangover beckons.

Hangover is characterized by a throbbing headache, nausea, diarrhea, sore muscles, tremors, thirst and fatigue. This leads to decreased occupational, cognitive, and visual-spatial skills. In the United States, alcohol related absenteeism and decreased job performance costs an estimated $150 billion annually, about $2,000 per working adult.

But hangovers only happen with alcoholics, right? Wrong. Most hangovers are incurred by the light-to-moderate drinker and can happen despite having a legal blood alcohol level. Many factors lead to hangovers. Dehydration, hormonal alterations, and toxic compounds found in alcohol containing beverages are the main culprits.

Dehydration is one of the primary causes of hangovers. Alcohol, more appropriately ethanol, and its by-products are toxins. The body removes them from your system via the liver and kidneys. The multiple visits to the powder room are evidence of this. The resulting dehydration can cause headaches and generalized malaise, similar to symptoms experienced from over exerting on a hot, humid day.

Organic molecules called congeners may be more responsible for hangovers than ethanol. Congeners are toxins that occur naturally during the alcohol fermentation process. They can give flavor, smell and color to alcohol. Congeners occur in varying amounts in alcohol containing beverages, which explains why some drinks are more notorious for producing hangovers than others. Try to choose drinks made with gin and vodka, which have very few congeners. Brandy, rum, bourbon and scotch have six to eight times the amount of congeners as gin and 25 to 30 times as much as vodka. A good rule >of thumb is the darker the liquor, the more congeners it contains. The same is true with wine, with white wine having less congeners than red wine.

Another cause of hangovers is a build-up of acetaldehyde in your system. Ethanol is processed by your liver in two steps by two different enzymes. The first enzyme, alcohol dehydrogenase, converts ethanol into acetaldehyde, which is very toxic. The second enzyme, aldehyde dehydrogenase, converts the acetaldehyde into harmless acetate. If you overwhelm this system with too much ethanol, the first enzyme can turn ethanol into acetaldehyde faster than the second enzyme can turn the acetaldehyde into acetate. This creates a excess of acetaldehyde in the body, which can make you extremely sick. This relationship varies from person to person and by gender, with males having more of the enzymes than females.

Besides the obvious answer of abstinence, what can you do to help prevent a hangover? Most hangover remedies are so much malarkey, but there are some real aids:

• The number one "cure" is water, water, water. Try to drink a glass of water for every drink that you consume.
• B-complex vitamins are used in the alcohol detoxification process. Thiamine is essential for the oxygen-dependent part of the metabolism of alcohol, so stay well supplied.
• Avoid carbonated drinks, which speeds alcohol absorption. This is one time where money talks. More expensive brands of liquors have fewer impurities/congeners than the cheaper brands. Finally, get some fructose into your system.
• Fructose, found in foods such as honey and tomato juice, competes for the metabolism of ethanol, preventing rapid changes in blood alcohol levels that can overwhelm the enzyme system as mentioned above.

Please do not drink and drive. We want you to have a safe and joyous holiday season.

-- Randy Buckner