Difficult awakening on January 1st. Before trying a miracle recipe to cure your hangover, here’s a scientific evaluation.
Unless you consider it, from a puritanical point of view, as the fair retribution for the excesses of the day before, a hangover is a familiar state that we would do well without. But what can be done to avoid a difficult tomorrow, a mushy mouth, a hooded stomach and hair that grows upside down?
Hangover immunity?
It was during the very serious annual congress of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology that researchers presented their research results (in English) on this crucial question.
For science, the mechanism of the hangover (or veisalgia, in more chosen terms) remains rather mysterious. Different theories have been put forward – dehydration, withdrawal, hypoglycemia, inflammation – but none prevail completely (in English). However, some people say they are totally immune to it. Heavenly gift or deception? In any case, researchers conducted the investigation.
Bitter disappointment
To try to see it less troubled, they were therefore interested in a group of Canadian students, who we imagine concerned by the question. They thus asked 789 of them to report on their monthly drinking bouts, detailing their subsequent hangover, from “non-existent” to “disabling” (!). Their alcohol consumption was assessed in the same way.
Result, disappointing if any: the subjects immune to hangovers were simply… those who drank the least! And since this study confirms a Dutch study with similar conclusions, it seems that hangover immunity is a myth. No one escapes their destiny.
Drink water and eat a lot
However, many remedies, often exchanged between two moans, are believed to help fight hangovers. One of them, with a solid reputation, is to drink plenty of water before going to bed. Another is to eat fat to “wipe up” the alcohol. Simple and efficient – at least we can hope so.
This time it was Dutch students who donated themselves. Researchers at the University of Utrecht questioned 449 of them, looking for proof of the effectiveness of the aforementioned remedies: drink a lot and eat plenty. And this is where the matter gets complicated.
The subtleties of science
Overall, scientists have found that drinking plenty of water before going to bed, eating fat while drinking, or having a solid breakfast the next morning did have a statistically significant effect on hangover levels. feeling. In short, the tests made it possible to show a difference which is not due to chance.
But this difference was so small in terms of magnitude that their conclusion is clear: these remedies are useless. “How can you avoid having a hangover? Based on these new research findings, the answer is simple. We must drink less, ”slice ruthlessly Michael Bloomfield, researcher in psychiatry at University College London.
A glimmer of hope
Let’s nuance it. The study in question is retrospective and involves self-assessment questionnaires. These are therefore results of moderate reliability. In contrast, a randomized controlled trial – like those used to validate the efficacy of drugs – would validate the results of this second study much more robustly.
This is what the researchers themselves conclude. It is therefore a matter of keeping hope: it is likely that soon, students, Dutch or not, will be on the go again to help science. And if it’s too late for moderation, a word of advice: an aspirin and a coffee often do the trick.
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