The majority of people who have tried drinking alcohol at least once in their life, have experienced hangover. This condition might be of different intensity and sometimes it is thus unpleasant that the first time of getting acquainted with alcohol becomes the last one for a person who permanently does not want to drink alcohol ever again.
If hangover has not stopped you from relishing alcoholic drinks and buzz, you might be wondering about the ways which can prevent hangover or make it milder apart from just refraining from having alcohol altogether. As you can imagine, there are many ways which are popular among people. Unfortunately, a great number of them are myths which will not help you to drink alcohol without unpleasant consequences. This article will explain to you which widespread beliefs about drinking alcohol and hangover are just myths.
The myths about prevention of hangover
Here are a couple of popular methods used by people in order to avoid hangover in the first place which are not working in the reality.
Eating fatty foods before drinking alcohol
Some people consume rather fatty dishes or just pure fat, for instance olive oil before having alcohol. They believe this will reduce the ability of the digestive system to absorb alcohol as it will be covered with fat.
It is possible that fat might really reduce the absorption of alcohol, however, there are two problems with this popular method. First of all, the area of the entire digestive tract of a healthy adult is between 30 and 40 square metres. In order to cover it with a layer of fat sufficient for protection, you will have to consume an entire kilogram of pure fat.
Another issue is the fact that having fatty food while drinking alcohol Is not recommended at all as it only creates excessive pressure on the liver which now will have to digest not only alcohol but also fat.
The percentage of alcohol in the drinks should not be decreased
Basically, when people are mentioning the above sentence, they mean that one should not drink alcohol drinks with a smaller percentage of alcohol after having more potent beverages. According to the popular belief, decreasing the amount of alcohol, for instance by first having wine and then drinking beer is making hangover more intensive.
There is a bit of truth in this belief which concerns mixing of beverages in the first place. This can make hangover worse indeed. Yet, this does not have anything to do with the amount of alcohol in your drinks. What is important in this case is the type of ingredients used for the production of these beverages. When they are combined, they can cause more severe hangover.
Drinking a lot of water will save you from dehydrating and will help to avoid hangover
Having water in a moderate amount can really increase the process of removing toxins from your body which can be sensible while you having alcohol. Still, it is important to understand that alcohol actually does not cause dehydration. Alcohol will just spread the alcohol inside your body in a different way making it gather in particular parts of the body. This can leads to swelling and migraines the day after you have your party.
Popular ideas for addressing hangover
Here you will find widespread myths about the ways for battling hangover which has already happened. Again, you should be quite sceptical about them.
Alcohol can help you to overcome hangover
There is a rather widespread belief that alcohol can help you to get rid of hangover. This belief is possibly based on the popular idea of similar things being able to neutralise each other, albeit it is not necessarily like that.
Actually, this practice is not recommended to healthy people whose metabolism is not damaged by excessive drinking. In their bodies, a new portion of alcohol will simply create an extra amount of aldehydes which should be removed. This is only additional work for an organism which is already struggling with hangover. This method can be helpful exclusively in the case of people addicted to alcohol.
Consuming activated carbon
Activated carbon is well-known for absorbing various toxins helping a body to detoxify. This is absolutely true, however, it does not make this product useful when it comes to hangover.
Unfortunately, hangover is the exact result of the body absorbing toxins, so there is no point in taking activated carbon as all of the toxins are already deep in your system.
Some people are taking this product before having alcohol hoping it will help them to prevent hangover. This will also not happen since the particles of ethanol are small enough to get into the body system before they can be captured by activated carbon.
Brine and pickles will save you
Needless to say, one of the most favourite traditional medicines for hangover are brine and pickles, especially pickled cucumbers.
If you want to use this method, you should make sure first your pickles were fermented without addition of vinegar. in such a case the brine can really help you balance the electrolytes and water in the body. Otherwise you will only add extra aldehydes for removing from your body which can make the hangover even worse.