Do you want to know how to prevent hangovers? Let’s start with the simplest answer: don’t drink. That is really the only way that you can assure yourself you won’t have a hangover.
If you are going to drink think: hydration. One of the major contributors to hangover symptoms is dehydration. Remember that consuming alcohol makes you have to go to the bathroom because of the effects of vasopressin. Drinking water or an electrolyte drink (such as Gatorade or Pedialyte) before, during, and/or after drinking alcohol might help reduce the severity of your hangover.
Vasopressin
Vasopressin is a hormone that is made in your body, created in the hypothalamus and released by the pituitary gland. It gets its name because it is a vasopressor (which in biological terms means it causes the action of stimulating contraction of the arteriole muscles). One of its main functions is to regulate your body’s hydration and prevent you from expelling diluted urine. In a sense, it is the irrigation regulator of the human body.
When you drink more than moderate amounts of alcohol your body sends a signal to the pituitary gland to block the creation of this antidiuretic hormone. Basically, when you are drinking your body’s cells do not get properly hydrated (and dehydration occurs at the cellular level). Furthermore, your kidneys begin sending water directly to your bladder instead of reabsorbing the water into the body for use. This is what we drinkers call “breaking the seal” and it is about this time in the night that we need to start frequenting the restroom every fifteen minutes.
As we continue to expel fluid throughout the night, we are dehydrating the cells in the brain as well. If we are not thinking about hydration while consuming alcohol, a headache is almost assured to be had come morning time because these shrinking brain cells pull on the internal walls of the skull. As if this were not enough, constantly having to go to the bathroom flushes the body of electrolytes — even if we are staying hydrated – leading to fatigue. We also lose a lot of our body glycogen through urine which leads to even lower levels of energy in the morning.
According to researchers, consuming a quarter-liter of liquor can cause your body to release up to four times that amount in water because of this hormonal imbalance. So when you wake up in the morning from a night of drinking with a dry mouth, a headache, and urine the color of Tang, now you know why.
Hydration helps prevent hangovers
Hydration tactics help prevent hangovers in a few ways, the most important one being that there is a chance that staying hydrated (by drinking a non-alcoholic drink in between alcoholic drinks) will impede the volume of alcohol you would otherwise consume if you were only drinking alcohol. If you are able to drink an electrolyte drink, using this method will also aid in maintaining electrolyte levels.
Along with this same rationale, drinking beverages with less alcohol concentration can help prevent hangovers as well… less alcohol going in means less alcohol in your system to add to the severity of your hangover.
Avoiding alcohol known to be high in congeners will lend a hand in reducing symptoms too, so drinking clear alcohol (instead of red wine or the dark stuff) can limit the number of congeners you consume. Also, some red wines are high in histamines, so you could be getting a mild allergic reaction when you drink and not even know it. The best call if you are going to drink is to consume light beer.
Histamine, Alcohol, and Wine
Histamine is a biochemical that we usually associate with allergic reactions. It is a histidine-derived amine compound that is fairly common. If you or a friend have ever been stung by a bee and needed to go to the hospital then you definitely know what it is. When it enters the body, it dilates blood vessels and makes the vessel walls abnormally permeable, which when circulated throughout the brain can cause pressure in the head, and can eventually give you one nasty headache.
Almost all alcoholic beverages have histidine-derived amine compounds, along with a lot of processed and fermented foods, with red wine high on the chart because it is made from whole grapes (including the grape skin — as opposed to white wine which is not). Some people attribute the “Red Wine Headache” to the sulfites or tannins in red wine, but in most cases, the people that suffer red wine headaches are probably dealing with an allergic reaction to histamine instead. In fact, white wines, for the most part, have more sulfites than red wines do, so if sulfites were the culprit you would actually be getting “White Wine Headaches”. Furthermore, the theory behind tannins causing headaches is based on serotonin overload and has never been proved scientifically. What most experts agree is happening is that people that suffer from red wine headaches are in short supply of an enzyme that breaks down histamine in the small intestine. And as if that wasn’t bad enough for these sufferers, drinking alcohol also hinders this enzyme (in everyone), so it is a one-two punch to the system almost insuring a headache for people that are allergic.
This potential culprit’s amount differs in each bottle of wine and food allergies can be tricky to isolate depending on the consumer’s immune system at the time of digestion. Try different brands of wine to find out which ones your body can tolerate, or better yet get a food allergy test performed to see what you are allergic to.
It is important to note too that drinking any kind of booze can dilate blood vessels in the brain, which can cause a headache. Drink in moderation and remember to stay hydrated to prevent hangovers. The body is a great communicator. If it doesn’t like what you are doing it will send you signals (ex.a headache) telling you that you should try something else. It is in your best interest to listen to these messages and slow down, stop, or alter course until you feel better. Remember the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results!