Veisalgia
My mom came to visit in February. The plan was that she was going to make my friends and I vegetarian chili one night. That day, she and I bought ingredients and all of that. When we returned to my house, all my friends were “sick.” At first, we didn’t understand what that meant or why they were all sick, but we finally realized that they were actually just hung over from the previous night’s debauchery. Sure that’s not really the correct word for what I’m talking about, but if you click on that link right there, you’ll see why I had to use it. I’m not going to get into hangover symptoms but instead focus on what causes them.
- 1904 saw the word “hangover” used in its contemporary context.
- Hypoglycemia, dehydration, B12 deficiency and the presence of the chemical acetaldehyde are thought to be some of the main contributors to hangovers.
- 25-30% of drinkers do not experience hangovers and at their worst, symptoms can last 2-3 days after drinking.
- Some symptoms are similar to those of “acute ethanol withdrawl.” Simply put, it’s a lesser (much, much lesser) version of what you’d experience if you were a recovering alcoholic.
- Ehtanol dehydrates because it’s a diuretic. Dehydration, in turn, leads to headaches, dry mouth and lethargy, and let me tell you a little something about headaches.
- The brain, when dehydrated, shrinks a bit and pulls away from the skull, causing one to have a headache.
- When ethanol metabolizes, the body’s production of Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) increases. The buildup of such can decrease the generation of glucose in the liver and lead to hypoglycemia.
- When liver enzymes break ethanol down, it’s converted to acetaldehyde (ethanal)and then to acetic acid. Acetaldehyde is 10-30 times more toxic than alcohol in addition to being carcinogenic and mutagenic. It’s also flammable. On a more positive note, it’s found in coffee, ripe fruit and fresh bread, so it can’t be as bad as it sounds.
- There are a lot of chemical breakdowns that occur which I’m not going to get into, but I will say that the end result is a lack of glucose to the brain. Glucose provides that brain its energy, so this energy deprivation accounts for moodiness, inability to concentrate, etc.
- Another chemical, gluthathione, is used by the liver to filter toxins from the bloodstream. Alcohol can deprive the liver of this chemical so toxins and free radicals are more present in the blood.
- Hangover symptoms are exaggerated by the presence of a byproduct of fermentation that is called cogeners.
- Interestingly enough, cogeners are sometimes “naturally” found in sweet liquers to enhance flavor and in red wine. Thus, distilled alcohols like vodka do not contain such chemicals and that is part of the reason drinking “colorless/less sweet” alcohols may not result in such bad hangovers.
- Lastly, B12 deficiency is the result of 1 molecule of ethanol producing 2 molecules of NADH during metabolism. B12 is a coenzyme that is utilized in that process.
I got the picture from here. Maybe I’ll get more hits now that I linked that page? That was my intention in doing that.
