You don`t have to be a chronically heavy drinker to suffer the adverse effects of alcohol. One ``night on the town`` can do it, as millions have discovered the morning after.
Hangovers have no respect for race, nationality or socio-economic status. Anyone who overdoes it can get one. To a hung-over German it`s katzenjammer, the wailing of cats. Italians call it stonato, out of tune. To the French it`s la gueule de Bois, woody mouth; in Spain resaca, surf of sea; in Norway, jeg har tommermenn, workmen in my head; and in Sweden it`s hont i haret, pain in the roots of the hair. But by whatever name, the splitting headache, searing thirst, churning stomach, furry tongue and shaky jitters of a hangover are an exacting price to pay for an evening`s indulgence.
According to Dr. Morris Chafetz, former director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, those who drink under tense circumstances or who feel guilty about drinking are likely to have the worst hangovers.
Fatigue also has a lot to do with it. Because alcohol anesthetizes the brain`s early warning system that tells you when you`re tired and ready to go to bed, you tend to stay up a lot later than you should.
In fact, Chafetz says, you can get hangover symptoms without touching a drop of alcohol-just from pushing yourself too hard and staying up too late.
Alcohol also makes a direct contribution to the next morning`s miseries. It draws water from body cells and increases the loss of water through the kidneys, causing the extreme thirst common to hangovers. Hangover headache may result from the swelling of cranial arteries because alcohol causes blood vessels to expand. The nausea, vomiting and heartburn of a hangover stem from alcohol`s irritation of the lining of the gastrointestinal tract. Alcohol also delays the passage of food to the small intestine, interfering with proper digestion.
Then there are the congeners. These are chemical contaminants in distilled spirits that contribute to the characteristic flavors of the spirits. Congeners result from the fermentation and maturation of the liquor. Although alcohol is rapidly eliminated from the body, congeners are not and they hang around to cause toxic effects the next day.
In fact, researchers were able to produce hangovers in volunteers just by giving them water solutions of congeners without alcohol.
Sensitivity to the type and amount of congeners in various drinks may be the reason why some people are adversely affected by some types of alcoholic beverages but not by others. Vodka and gin have the fewest congeners; blended scotch has four times more than gin; and brandy, rum and pure malt scotch have six times the congener level of gin. Bourbon leads the pack with eight times as many congeners as gin and 30 times as many as vodka. Red wine contains substances similar to congeners to which some people are sensitive.
In one study, hangovers were produced most often by brandy, followed by red wine, rum, whiskey, white wine, gin and vodka-in that order.
The hangover has inspired a plentitude of remedies through the ages. Coffee, raw eggs, oysters, chili peppers, steak sauce, vitamins, antacids, apirin and sleeping pills are some modern American ones. The Norwegians swear by a glass of heavy cream; the Russians recommend salted cucumber juice; and the Swiss use brandy with peppermint-akin to the Bloody Mary of those Americans who believe in the ``hair of the dog`` philosophy. But none of these is likely to bring much relief, and the hair of the dog-i.e. more alcohol-may make things worse.
While the anesthetic effect of the alcohol may temporarily relieve the pangs of hangover, it only delays the moment of reckoning and interferes with the only sure remedy: time and rest. Coffee, a stimulant, and exercise also are counterproductive for that reason. -