Hangovers: What You Need To Know

While partying can seem like a lot of fun at the time, we all know what the end result of this fun can be – a hangover. The next morning you feel nauseated, achy, can’t stay away from the toilet and you wince at the thought of light. Even worse, you have a pain in your head that feels like someone is running a jackhammer through your skull. For those of you who have never experienced this malaise - welcome to the world of the hangover. It is this collection of bad feeling that has caused party animal to wonder if the fun was worth the results and vow to never party that hard again.

Why Alcohol Causes Headaches

Exactly why does drinking alcohol result in a pounding headache later? The majority of the blame for hangovers lies in ethanol, a liquid that results from the process of fermenting the sugar and starch found in grains. While ethanol is mostly used to make alcohol, is it also used to produce gasoline?

There are several ways that ethanol can cause a post alcohol headache. First, ethanol is the direct cause of vasodilatation, a condition in which the blood vessels expand, resulting in a pounding head. Also, ethanol is a natural diuretic, which makes your body lose water, vitamins, minerals and salt. When your body realizes it is becoming dehydrated and losing needed nutrients, it diverts the blood supply that would normally feed your limbs and skin to the major organs like your heart and brain. This is actually a survival mechanism on the part of your body in an attempt to prevent death. However, the resulting unusually large supply of blood in the vessels in your brain causes these vessels to enlarge and dilate. The end result of this survival mechanism is a headache.

There's also the chance that last night's drink didn't contain just alcohol, but other chemicals called congeners, which are impurities that occur during fermentation and give the alcohol its color and taste. These can also cause headaches and drinking too much of them will give you a hangover. It's always good to remember that the darker the drink, the more congeners it has, unless it happens to be moonshine, which is 70% alcohol, in which case you're in a lot of trouble.

Ways to Avoid the After Alcohol Headache

There is actually only one fool proof way to avoid an alcohol-induced headache, or hang over. That is to not drink and alcohol, as the old saying goes: "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Some people, however, promise to never drink again while in the middle of a hangover, but then start drinking again as soon as the memory of the hangover induced pain fades away.

If you must over-indulge in alcohol, you can choose to treat the main cause of the resulting hangover. Since most of the pain of a hangover is caused by dehydration, your best bet is to drink plenty of fluid. However, it is not a good idea to drink the same beverage that gave you the hangover, this can result in a bad habit know as alcoholism. Your best choices are either plain water or sports drinks, which contain electrolytes that will help your body restore the minerals, vitamins and salts that were depleted by the alcohol.

Meanwhile, scientists have recently uncovered a gene that helps fruit flies develop a tolerance for alcohol. Appropriately named "hangover", this gene might someday make human hangovers a thing of the past. Even while this hangover cure might by on the horizon, however, remember it is not here yet. The best way to treat a hangover is still not to get one to start with.

Hangovers: What You Need To Know