What, specifically, causes the symptoms of a hangover? Why does eating and drinking make it better?
In: Biology
Because your body intoxicated by the products of metabolism of alcohol, when you eat or drink, they flow out and you slowly coming back to normal functioning
Like the other guy said, it’s still not fully understood. The current top theory is this (stuff in brackets is above ELI5, but helps with comprehension):
Alcohol (ethanol) is toxic to your body. Your liver has stuff inside it that turns toxic things into not toxic things. Unfortunately due to the chemical reactions that are possible inside your body, the alcohol (ethanol) gets turned into something more toxic (acetaldehyde) before getting broken down into harmless things in your liver, for you to pee out.
If you drink too much, you get too much of the bad thing (acetaldehyde) for your liver to break it down at the rate it comes in. As a result, your body needs to take a long time breaking it down into harmless things. This period, after the body has turned the alcohol (ethanol) into the more toxic thing (acetaldehyde), but before it is broken down to be harmless, is the period of the hangover.
It is believed that this toxic thing (acetaldehyde) causes the symptoms (such as nausea).
Apparently its surprisingly complex, there is a multitude of toxic substances and physiological substances involved, so for a complete answer youd probably need a whole bunch of scientists.
But there are three things that explain the eating and drinking thing:
1. Dehydration: Your body needs to get rid of toxic stuff, and does so by pissing them out. This removes liquid and dissolved minerals (‘electrolytes’) from your body. Eating salty stuff and drinking allows you to refill on those liquids and minerals.
2. Low blood sugar. For some reason, hangovers are associated with low blood sugar, which makes you feel bad. Adding sugar helps.
3. Alcohol increases production of substances which increase acidity in your stomach. Adding stuff thats not acidic helps stabilizing the acid levels. (For that reason gastric protection drugs like pantoprazol work wonders).
Source: Was medic in the armed forces in a country where the armed forces consist of conscripts that have nothing to do except drinking, so curing hangovers was like 50% of my job description and we made quite the science of it 😀
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