Science Vs - Hangovers: What Really Helps?

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

What actually cures a hangover? Water? Crushed up Advil? Maybe a burger, fries and a Diet Coke? We wanted to know what the science says about how to bounce back when we’ve had a few too many. We talk to psychopharmacologist Andrew Scholey to find out. Find our transcript here: https://bit.ly/ScienceVsHangovers  In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Party on Bourbon Street (02:11) Does water cure a hangover? What about electrolytes? (08:08) Does sleep cure a hangover? (9:24) Inflammation and hangovers (11:41) What actually works for a hangover Credits: This episode was produced by R.E. Natowicz, with help from Wendy Zukerman and Meryl Horn, along with Joel Werner, Rose Rimler, and Michelle Dang. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Gimlet’s managing director is Nicole Beemsterboer. Fact checking by Erica Akiko Howard. Mix and sound design by Bobby Lord. Music by Bobby Lord, Peter Leonard, Emma Munger and Bumi Hidaka. Thanks to all the researchers we spoke to including Dr. Sally Adams, Prof. Daryl Davies, Prof. Steve Allsop, Prof. David Mangelsdorf, Jöran Köchling, Dr. Stephen Goodman and Dr. Tamara Hew-Butler. Special thanks to the Zukerman family and Joseph Lavelle Wilson.  Science Vs is a Spotify Original Podcast and a Gimlet production. Follow Science Vs on Spotify and if you wanna receive notifications every time we put out a new episode, tap the bell icon! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and you're listening to Science Versus from Gimlet. Today, we're pitting facts against feeling like a bag of dicks. As we look at hangovers, is there anything you can do to stop them? Last week, we took a deep dive into whether a cheeky glass of beer or wine is healthy. And new research is telling us, no, it was sad news. And when our producer, Ari Natavich, headed to Bourbon Street in New Orleans, this is party central, it seemed like quite a few people were clearly drowning their sorrows. And we wanted to know,

when the hangovers kicked in the next day, what were people going to do? And basically everyone had a go-to. One big thing we heard over and over again, drinking water. Water. Water. Water. Some damn water.

Shit, go to the hospital, get that IV. A lot of water. You. Water. Water. Some damn water. Shit, go to the hospital, get that IV. A lot of water. You need to get hydrated. Some people were taking it a step further and going for water that was supercharged with electrolytes. You get a bottle of Pedialyte and you chug that shit before you go to bed, that's the only thing you can do to make yourself feel better. Some were going to close their eyes and hope for the best.

Probably sleep. Just sleep. While others had plans for a big breakfast when they got up. Bacon, egg and cheese helps the hangover. Grease. Grease. Lots of grease. So today, we're putting our hangover cures to the ultimate test.

And bottom line, we are going to find out if there's anything you can do to cure our hangover cures to the ultimate test. And bottom line, we are going to find out if there's anything you can do to cure a hangover. Because when it comes to hangovers, there's a lot of... Chug that sh** before you go to bed. But then there's science. Science vs. Hangovers is coming up. Just after the break. Handsome? Who knew you could give yourself the ick? That's why Bumble is changing how you start conversations. You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches.

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And don't forget to subscribe wherever you tune in. Welcome back. Today, we are taking a shot at finding an actual hangover cure. Does it exist? And to find out, we're going 15,000 kilometres away from Bourbon Street. Can I just get a lager, please? To a pub in Melbourne, Australia. That is a perfect pour, by the way.

I'm here with Professor Andrew Scully. I want to have a beer. He got a Pepsi. Pepsi Max? Yeah. Andrew works in industry and is affiliated with Monash and Swinburne Universities in Melbourne. And one of the things that Andrew studies is hangovers. He's written a bunch on the topic and even puts his body on the line for his craft.

We occasionally road test some of the purported hangover cures, which often involves drinking a bottle of a big, dirty red wine and seeing if there's any effect of the putative hangover cures. Amazing! I mean, who knows? You've got to suffer for science sometimes. And the first potential hangover cure that we're going to talk to Andrew about is something we heard a tonne on Bourbon Street, drinking water. And this idea, it could make a lot of sense because alcohol is a diuretic, which means it makes you pee.

So you pee out more water than you would normally do. Now, if you're peeing out a tonne of water, it stands to reason that you might be dehydrated, which we know when you get really, really dehydrated, you can get headaches and feel awful. And the thing is, so many articles that quote scientists talk about dehydration as a big reason for hangovers. You'll hear science-y sounding people all over the place saying this. We're busty a few hangover myths now with science journalist Wendy Zuckerman. Let's make a welcome. Including me.

Almost 10 years ago, this is what I said on national Australian television about what happens when you drink alcohol. So it really makes us pee a lot. And that means that when we wake up in the morning, we're often incredibly dehydrated. So water's the best thing you can do. Okay, so was I right? Our hangover's caused by dehydration and will guzzling down water fix you right up. It's time for Science vs Wendy.

I need a drink. So back when I did that interview, that is what the science was suggesting. But since then, we've got more data and things have gotten pretty muddy. It's not straightforward. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. So studies find that when you drink a lot of booze, like say six drinks as they measured in one study,

you do pee more than you would if you were drinking, say, juice. About half a litre or a pint glass more, they found. The question is though, is that enough to dehydrate you? And we actually couldn't find any studies that had checked whether people were technically dehydrated after a night of drinking. What we do have, though, are studies that have looked at whether drinking more water makes people's hangovers better. And generally, these studies find that it doesn't. Now, if you're vomiting, this is a bit different. That will make you lose a ton of fluids. And we know after vomiting, water is a good idea. But ultimately, when it comes to hangovers, a big review paper from 2019 found that while lots of people think dehydration is the main cause of hangovers, not mentioning any dames,

the research, quote, suggests otherwise, end quote. I talked to Andrew about this. Once you have a hangover, does drinking water take away that hangover? No, it doesn't really seem to alleviate hangover symptoms, despite what people say. That's so disappointing. Yeah.

For everyone who's downed glass after glass of water while being hungover and found it didn't really help, now you know why. And to go back to my TV advice that drinking water was the key. Well, Wendy, next time we have our head in the toilet, we'll be thinking of you and your advice. The overconfidence of youth. Okay, moving on. Next up, what about electrolytes? These are things like sodium, potassium and magnesium. And the whole idea with downing Gatorade or little sachets filled with electrolytes is that they're going to help you rehydrate. Now, again, if you're vomiting, then yes, electrolytes with some water is a good idea. But if your head isn't in the toilet, the research we have doesn't suggest that electrolytes play any special role in hangovers.

Like one study from the 1970s got about 20 students really drunk, measured their sodium, potassium levels, and found no link between how bad their hangovers were and whether they were low on any electrolytes. So Andrew says this idea of chugging electrolytes? It just doesn't hold up to any scrutiny. So I haven't seen any evidence at all to back that up. Do you think that people sometimes don't believe when you tell them it's not about dehydration,

it's not about electrolytes? These are just such firmly held beliefs. Do you ever have students just go, no, no, no, I swear by it? I think there are people who genuinely believe that it works for them. But yeah, the plural of anecdote isn't evidence. Ooh, tough talk from Andrew.

Next up, what about just sleeping? Does that help? Lab studies have found that after just one night of crappy sleep, it can turn you into a couple of the seven dwarves. Sleepy, duh, but also dopey and grumpy. We know sleep is important. And researchers also found over and over again that alcohol affects our sleep.

Or as Andrew says... Alcohol itself really screws with your sleep architecture, which seems to be very important in hangover severity. So if people just aren't sleeping properly the night before, a lot of those symptoms, you also see crankiness. Exactly, exactly. All sorts of cognitive problems, just screwed up by poor sleep. Curiously, in studies that have looked at how alcohol affects our sleep,

they found that there are some lucky people who tend to sleep pretty well despite drinking a bunch of booze, and they also tend to get less hungover. The problem is, this is kind of beyond our control, right? Like, for me, I sleep terribly after a grog-fueled night, so trying to sleep is hardly a cure. Okay, what about a humble pill like an aspirin or ibuprofen? And you might be like, sure, for my headache, right? But actually, this could also help for a reason that came as a real surprise to us on the Science Versus team. OK, so when you drink,

the alcohol in your body gets broken down into toxins. And it's looking like, as a response to those toxins, your immune system kicks in, creating inflammation. One review paper said that alcohol can profoundly affect inflammation. So, for example, your immune cells spit out these things called cytokines to start cleaning up the mess that all that whiskey has made in your body. And scientists can actually see that after we booze up, various cytokine levels can go up. And just generally speaking,

there's evidence that inflammation can cause stuff like... Nausea, fatigue, brain fog feelings. So while researchers are still working all this out, a lot of them in this space, including Andrew, now think that inflammation might be a key part of why we get hangovers. You can kind of think about it like you've put all of these toxins into your body and now your immune system is scrambling to fix it all up. And this is why perhaps tweaking that response with a cheeky anti-inflammatory might help your hangover. And indeed, one study found that giving people a drug like this before and after a whole bunch of drinking,

it did make their hangovers a little better the next day. Be careful, though, because taking a bunch of anti-inflammatories can up your risk of intestinal bleeding. And the science isn't so rock solid on this. I mean, when I asked Andrew what he might take for a hangover, he was pretty dithery on this one. Possibly some, you know, I might look at an anti-inflammatory would be the thing. Okay.

So it turns out that in the world of hangovers, the best science we have here is not on curing one once you're already holding your vom bag, but it's about winding back the clock on your night of booze and preventing the hangover in the first place. For this, don't waste your time worrying about drinking beer before wine. A study actually tested whether the order of those drinks matters, and it doesn't. So beer before wine is fine.

I can't remember which way Ramik is. But either way, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, yes. But instead, before you start ordering your drinks, flip to the food menu. Okay, so on Bourbon Street, people were thinking about what they were going to gobble up the next morning as a hangover cure. Greasy food. Why does greasy food work? Because it absorbs all the toxins in your body.

It absorbs all the science terms that you guys are probably looking for. Truth is, I'm not looking for some science-y terms. I'm just looking for some science. And we don't actually have any good research showing that what you eat after you're blitzed matters, whether it's greasy or not. But to find out if eating beforehand helps, one study gave 10 men a hefty meal of two cheese sandwiches and egg, yogurt, coffee, and OJ, and then followed it up with some alcohol. And they found that after the men ate, their peak alcohol levels were around 35% lower compared to when they drank on an empty stomach. Other studies have found this kind of thing too. And we know that having less alcohol in your blood

drops the chance that you'll have a nasty hangover. Absolutely, yep. Drinking on an empty stomach is pretty disastrous for intoxication and hangover. And so that would suggest you need to have your stomach full before you start eating alcohol. Exactly. What we're learning is that hangovers are this complicated thing where your body is

trying to deal with all that alcohol you've poured into it. So I guess it's not surprising that there's no quick fix. Oh, well, I guess there is one. Number one way to prevent a hangover. Don't drink alcohol. Don't drink alcohol to excess. Yes, you don't drink, you don't get a hangover. Cheers.

I'm going to have a little bit, but I actually didn't even finish this very small glass of beer. True. I can vouch for that. The science has worked. That's Science Versus. Hello. Hi. Hey, Ari Natavich, our wonderful intern here at Science Versus.

Your first Science Versus episode is out in the world. Yay. How many citations is in it? There's 64 citations in this episode. 64. And if people want to see the script with all of its glorious research and citations, where should they go? You should go to the show notes and you can

check out the transcript there. And next week is our Superbugs episode, where we look at how worried we should be and why they seem to be everywhere. Ari, what do you think audiences should get excited about with the Superbugs app? Probably that Wendy's poop is going to save us all. Unsighted, but yeah, maybe. So that's next week, our Superbugs app. Thank you so much for making this beautiful hangovers episode. Thank you.

Which I actually, can I just say, used some of the research for last night. So thank you. How did it go for you? I feel great. Cheers. All right research for last night. So thank you. How did it go for you? I feel great. Cheers. All right. See you, Ari. Thank you.

See ya. This episode was produced by Ari Natavich, with help from me, Wendy Zuckerman, Meryl Horn, Joel Werner, Rose Rimler, and Michelle Dang. We're edited by Blythe Terrell. Gimlet's Managing Director is Nicole Beamster-Bohr. Fact-checking by Erica Akiko Howard. Mix and sound design by Bobby Lord.

Music written by Bobby Lord, Peter Leonard, Emma Munger and Bumi Hidaka. Thanks to all the researchers we spoke to for this episode, including Dr Sally Adams, Professor Daryl Davies, Professor Steve Alsop, Professor Daryl Davies, Professor Steve Alsop, Professor David Mangelsdorf, Joran Kochling, Dr. Stephen Goodman, and Dr. Tamara Hugh Butler. A special thanks to the Zuckerman family and Joseph Lavelle Wilson. Science Versus is a Spotify original podcast and a Gimlet production. Follow Science Versus on Spotify. And if you want to receive notifications every time we put out a new episode, which you do because it makes it so easy to see, hey,

new Science Versus is out. Better listen. Anyway, if you want those notifications, then just tap the bell icon. There's a little bell icon. You just tap that. You'll get Science Versus notifications on Spotify. All right, I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Back to you next time.