(CNN) – Drinking night? You are probably dealing with veisalgia right now.
More commonly known as a hangover, this unpleasant phenomenon has haunted mankind since our ancestors first discovered fermentation.
Those unpleasant sensations that cause vertigo, cold sweat and vomiting after a noisy night are part of your body’s attempt to protect itself from injury after consuming excess alcoholic beverages.
Your liver is working to break down the alcohol you consumed so your kidneys can eliminate it as soon as possible. But in the process, the inflammatory and metabolic reactions of your body will depress you with a hangover.
Since people suffer from hangover, they have searched in vain for a cure. Party animals have access to a variety of compounds, products and devices that aim to relieve pain.
But there are many claims and not many tests. Most have not been backed by science in terms of utility for the treatment of hangover, and often its effects do not seem to coincide with what scientists know about the biology of the hangover.
Working overtime to clear alcohol
Hangovers are practically guaranteed when you drink too much. The amount varies from person to person according to genetic factors, as well as if there are other compounds that were formed together with ethanol in the fermentation process.
Over the course of a night of excessive alcohol consumption, your blood alcohol level continues to increase. Your body works to break down alcohol, which is consumed as ethanol in beer, wine or spirits, forming harmful oxygen free radicals and acetaldehyde, a harmful compound. The longer ethanol and acetaldehyde remain, the more damage they can cause to your cell membranes, proteins and DNA, so your body’s enzymes work quickly to metabolize acetaldehyde to a less toxic compound, acetate.
Over time, your ethanol levels fall through this natural metabolic process. Depending on how much you have consumed, you are likely to experience a hangover since the level of ethanol in the blood slowly returns to zero. Your body clears high levels of circulating alcohol, while trying to protect yourself from the effects of alcohol.
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Scientists have limited knowledge of the main causes of the hangover. But they do know that the body’s responses include changes in hormonal levels to reduce dehydration and cell stress. Alcohol consumption also affects a variety of neurotransmitter systems in the brain, including glutamate, dopamine and serotonin. Inflammation increases in body tissues, and healthy intestinal bacteria in your digestive system also get hit, promoting leaky gut.
In total, the combination of all these reactions and protection mechanisms activated by your system gives rise to the experience of a hangover, which can last up to 48 hours.
Your misery probably has company
Drinking and socializing are cultural acts, and most hangovers do not occur in isolation. Human beings are social creatures and there is a high probability that at least one other individual feels the same as you the morning after the previous night.
Each society has different rules regarding alcohol consumption, which can affect the way people view alcohol consumption within those cultures. Drinking is often valued for its relaxing effect and for promoting sociability. Therefore, it is common to see alcohol at celebratory events, social gatherings and Christmas parties.
In U.S, alcohol consumption is widely accepted by the dominant culture, which can even promote behaviors that involve excessive consumption. It should not surprise us that the excess of indulgence goes hand in hand with these social events of celebration, and that it leads to the hangover a few hours later.
Your body’s reactions to high alcohol intake and the recovery period can also influence mood. The combination of fatigue experienced by sleep deprivation and hormonal stress reactions, in turn, affects your neurobiological responses and behavior. As your body tries to repair itself, you are more likely to become irritated, easily exhausted and want nothing more than to be left alone. Of course, your productivity at work receives a dramatic blow the day after a night of excessive alcohol consumption.
When everything is said and done, you are the cause of your own hangover pain, and you are the one who must pay for all the fun of the previous night. But in a short time, you’ll forget how unbearable your last hangover was. And very soon you can convince yourself to do the things you swore you would never do again.
Accelerate recovery
While pharmacologists like us understand a little about how hangovers work, we still lack a true remedy.
Countless articles describe a variety of foods, caffeine, ion replacement, energy drinks, herbal supplements that include thyme and ginger, vitamins and “hangover remedies” as ways to prevent and treat the hangover. But the evidence is not really there that any of these work effectively. They are simply not scientifically validated or well reproduced.
For example, Kudzu root (Pueraria lobata), a popular option for hangover remedies, has been investigated primarily for its effects on reducing stress and alcohol-mediated hangover. But at the same time, Kudzu root seems to inhibit the enzymes that break down acetaldehyde, which is not a good News, since you want to remove that acetaldehyde from your system quickly.
To fill this knowledge gap, our laboratory is working with colleagues to see if we can find scientific evidence for or against possible hangover remedies. We have focused on the benefits of dihydromyricetin, a Chinese herbal medicine that is currently available and formulated as a dietary supplement for the reduction or prevention of hangover.
Dihydromyricetin seems to do its magic by improving alcohol metabolism and reducing its toxic byproduct, acetaldehyde. From our findings in mouse models, we are collecting data that support the usefulness of dihydromyricetin to increase the expression and activity of the enzymes responsible for the metabolism of ethanol and acetaldehyde in the liver, where ethanol decomposes primarily. These findings explain one of several ways in which dihydromyricetin protects the body against alcohol stress and hangover symptoms.
We are also studying how this improvement in alcohol metabolism causes changes in alcohol consumption behaviors. Previously, it was found that dihydromyricetin counteracts the relaxation effect of alcohol consumption by interfering with particular neuroreceptors in the brain; rodents were not intoxicated and, consequently, reduced their ethanol consumption. Through this combination of mechanisms, we hope to illustrate how DHM could reduce the disadvantages of excessive alcohol consumption beyond the temporary hangover, and potentially reduce drinking behavior and the damage associated with excessive alcohol consumption.
READ: Is it better to drink beer than wine? Not really, according to this hangover study
Of course, limiting alcohol consumption and replacing many of these drinks with water during a night out is probably the best method to avoid a painful hangover. However, for those times when an alcoholic drink leads to more than a few, make sure you stay hydrated and rest. Your best bet for a milder recovery is probably a combination of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen, Netflix and a little downtime.
Daryl Davies is a Clinical Pharmacy professor, Joshua Silva is a Ph.D. in Clinical and Experimental Therapeutics, and Terry David Church is an assistant professor of Regulatory and Quality Sciences at the University of Southern California.
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