Hangover Cures for the New Year

[talon]

New Year's and the festive drinking most commonly associated with it will be here soon. That means some people are going to have hangovers.

I am not among those people. I have never had a hangover. In talking with various acquaintances in the medical field, as well as friends and family members, I discovered why I don't get hangovers even though I sometimes over-indulge.

Even on my heavy drinking nights, I alternate alcoholic drinks with non-alcoholic ones. I prefer orange juice, V-8 juice, and Dr. Pepper as alternate drinks, occasionally sipping hot tea or hot cocoa if it's cold outside My favorite bar foods have always involved bacon - bacon wrapped cheese filled cherry tomatoes are one of my favorites, but I also like bacon sliders, bacon guacamole, and bacon cheese dips. I love bacon grilled shrimp, and even bacon wrapped scallops. I prefer white wine over red, and this, apparently, is a good thing because the compounds in red wine that give it the rich ruby color also increases the chance of a hangover.

Actually, the compounds that coor most alcohol have a greater chance of giving you a hangover. Stick with clear booze and you may not need a hangover cure.

The only real way to prevent a hangover is to avoid alcoholic beverages altogether. On a scale of 1 - 10, that's a solid 11.

If you are going to drink anyway, my style of drinking appears to be a good one - alternate an alcoholic drink with a non-alcoholic one: orange juice, V-8 juice, water, coffee, soda. Eat bar food. There's a reason bar foods are so popular, they really do reduce your chances of getting a hangover. Eat them. If it's your party, prepare bacon-oriented snack foods; bacon does a lot to reduce hangovers.

Take prickly pear cactus pills before starting your party drinking. Prickly pear cactus reduces dry mouth, nausea, and loss of appetite so you're more likely to enjoy those bar foods, plus it halves your chances of getting a hangover. On a scale of 1 - 10, it's around an 8.

If you have over-indulged and not alternated your alcoholic drinks with non-alcoholic ones and have a hangover, here is the absolute best hangover cure ever: bacon. Bacon is one of the few foods you probably won't mind eating after a night of serious over-indulging (unless you're a vegetarian or your religion considers pig taboo, in which case you could try one of the not-so-good aids). A bacon sandwich speeds up the metabolism, boosts blood sugars, provides fuel, and is full of the amino acids that restore brain neurotransmitters to quickly banish the symptoms of a hangover. Add a sports drink to your bacon sandwich, and you may find you suffer ever so much less. The combination of the two is the best possible hangover remedy. If you know you're going to over indulge, pre-cook some bacon and stock some sports drinks, then, when you wake with a hangover, all you have to do is warm the bacon and slap it between some bread and pop open a sports drink. This rates a solid 10 on a scale of 1 - 10.

A monkey smoothie can also help - a banana and 2 tablespoons of peanut butter whirled up with a glass of whole milk - by restoring electrolyes, providing antioxidants, increasing depleted blood sugars, soothing a queasy stomach, and replacing some of the lost fluids. Not a good cure for vegans and people who have a religious prohibition against eating milk with bananas, but for others, it works almost as well as the bacon sandwich and sports drink. This is a solid 9.

Vitamins B6 and B12 taken before you go to sleep with a full glass of water can also reduce hangover symptoms. On a scale of 1 - 10, this is probably a 6 or 7 - it won't cure a hangover, but it will certainly ease the symptoms and prevent a worse one from starting.

Water is neutral - you need it, but it doesn't really cure hangovers, only the dehydration. It does nothing to calm the pounding headache, the aversion to light, or any of the other symptoms of a hangover. Drink water anyway, you probably need it. On a scale of 1 - 10 (10 being best), it's a 5.

Milk thistle tablets are also neutral - they don't help regular drinkers because they aren't strong enough. But if you rarely indulge, milk thistle does improve your liver function and helps you metabolize alcohol a little more quickly - not as fast or well as a bacon sandwich, but anything's better than nothing when you suffer from a hangover. On a scale of 1 - 10 (10 being best), it's a 5.

The things you need to avoid for a hangover are the black coffee and Tylenol cure - that one is deadly. Black coffee makes your headache worse, and Tylenol (or any pain reliever with acetaminophen is toxic to your liver. You don't want to be taking them together when your liver is already stressed from too much alcohol. It could be fatal. If you need a pain reliever, take real aspirin; it's the least toxic. Exercise simply makes your dehydration worse, thus making your hangover worse. Taking the hair of the dog only masks and delays the hangover, it doesn't cure it. These are all in the negative zone - at least a -2 on a scale of 1 - 10.

If you want to exercise to burn off all those calories you imbibed, wait until after the hangover is gone. You'll get a greater benefit from the exercise and you won't over-stress your body.

As for those other hangover "cures" - like swallowing a raw egg, eating honey, persimmons, raw cabbage, kudzu or globe artichokes - they do nothing for hangovers. None will make your hangover worse, they just won't do anything towards making it better. Cooked eggs triumph slighly over raw eggs, especially fried in butter - the fat helps break down the alcohol in your system. Avocados are better than cabbage for the same reason - the fats in the avocado stimulate your metabolism.

Are you catching on to why drinking makes you fat? Fat protects you from the worst ravages ofalcohol, and eating fat will pack on the pounds. Not only are you getting excess calories from the booze, you get it from the hangover preventives and cures. The occasional over-indulgence is good for you. Enjoy the booze - and the fatty, yummy cures - once in a while. Say, at New Year's and your birthday. Then stick with the more sober options the rest of the year.

The good news is that hangovers usually only last 24 hours, so you'll feel much better tomorrow, as long as you don't drink again between now and then.