Tuesday, January 31

Lose your hangover with Silentbazz!

Another side effect of accepting "The Middle Ages" (see yesterday) is that I'm sure the hangovers are getting worse.  This is of greater concern for me at the moment as I am currently drinking for two (See?  How dedicated to this whole pregnancy process am I?).  And I'm not alone, I am sure that friends are complaining more about how bad their hangovers are getting as they get older.  So it was with great interest this week that I found out about congeners..  What, you cry, are congeners!?  Allow me to explain..

Here comes the science part, concentrate..

Most folks will drink alcoholic drinks for their ethanol content, you see?  However many such alcoholic beverages also contain amounts of other biologically active compounds known as.. (fanfare) congeners.

Congeners include complex organic molecules such as polyphenols, other alcohols such as methanol and histamine.  They are produced along with ethanol during fermentation of the drinks aging process.

Congeners are thought to contribute to the intoxicating effects of a drink (hooray!!) and the subsequent hangover (boo!!!).  If you drink mainly pure ethanol-based drinks suck as vodka then you're likely to suffer less from a hangover than if you've been out drinking darker beverages such as whisky, brandy and red wine, all of which have a much higher congener content.

The congener thought to be the main culprit of the hangover is methanol.  This is because humans metabolise methanol in a similar way to ethanol, but the end-product is different.  Ethanol generates acetaldehyde, but when methanol id broken down it mainly produces formaldehyde (bloody hell), which is more toxic than acetaldehyde and can cause blindness (eek!) or death (not good) in high concentrations.  Ethanol inhibits the metabolism of methanol which may be why drinking "hair of the dog" can alleviate hangover symptoms.

Studies have shown that the severity of different drinks' hangover symptoms decline in this order: brandy, red wine, rum, whisky, white wine, gin, vodka and pure ethanol.

Now whilst you may remain sceptical, I can honestly say that I have evidence that there is some wisdom in the words above, through personal experience..

Allow me to elaborate.

Each weekend we'll have a "takeaway night" - it's a night where we let someone else do the cooking and will try and relax, eat junk food, watch mindless crap on the telly and consume alcohol..  The alcohol in question was usually a bottle of red wine which the better half and I would share, and then, later, we'd usually move onto either brandy or vodka to round off the evening.. 

It's a kind of binge-drinking experience with junk food and without leaving the sofa. 

Now, obviously, the sharing of red wine aspect of this evening has become null and void recently, but the buying of the red wine certainly hasn't and this has usually lead to me necking entire bottles of Rioja or Shiraz in the evening (and then, still, rounding it off with brandy or vodka)..  Needless to say there has been evidence of hangover the next morning (ugh! Not good).  Last weekend, though, was the last weekend before payday and so the traditional January economy drive was in full effect..  So rather than buy a bottle of red, I decided to save a few quid and polish off the unopened bottle of white wine we'd bought to offer people over Xmas and had been untouched ever since.. and guess what?  The next morning there wasn't even the mildest of headaches!!

So there's something in this congener theory after all..

Now if anyone can tell me the average congener content of a pint of Stella compared to a shot of vodka, I'd be very interested.

Laters

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