HW: Alchoholic Beverages? Halt that hangover NOW!

[flossbac]

> I loved that bit of info from Doug Pearson about the 'Turkey Effect'. Xmas
> dinner will never seem quite the same again!
>
> Now.....how many of you out there remember as a teenager, being able to go
> out and consume a sufficient excess of alchohol......sleep it off.....and
> wake up feeling fine (albeit a bit dehydrated) and well enough to go to
> school or college?
>
> The as time rolls on into your 20's (when I got my first REAL
> hangover)....then into the 30's and you go out and drink moderately
without
> getting plastered and you wake up the following morning feeling  worse
than
> shite itself.  And the problem gets worse with age.
>
> Well .....there is a preventative answer.......which does not involve
> drinking pints of milk to line the stomach or consuming vast quantities of
> water at the end of your night out.
>
> Some years ago the owner of an off licence suggested doing exactly what
all
> the doctors and nurses do before they go on their ritualistic binge after
a
> hard weeks shift......
> Very simple........you swallow 2 Ibuprofen tablets (ie Neurofen in the UK)
> (*NOT PARACETAMOL OR ASPIRIN!!!!*)
> It has to be Ibuprofen painkiller/anti inflammatory....taken as
> directed,preferably with food....BEFORE YOU START DRINKING!
>
> I've tried it on numerous occasions and it really does work...........BUT
> HOW????
>
> I met up with a consultant from Guys Hospital in London some time ago, and
> asked him about this just to find out if he could authenticate this
> preventative remedy.
> He was well familiar with this pre-hangover treatment and went on to
> explain exactly how it works.
> It is nothing to do with 'killing the pain in advance'.
> What happens is.....(as I recall).......By taking Ibuprofen before
> consuming alcholic drink,
> the alchohol reacts with the Ibuprofen in the stomach, and produces an
> enzyme which in turn,neutralises the antibodies within the alchoholic
> drink, that would otherwise go on to give you a 'hangover'.
> It's actually helping to do exactly what our livers did for us as
teenagers
> when we went out drinking.
> Unfortunately.......as we get older, our livers become less efficient at
> dealing with this type of abuse,which is why 43 yr old 'lightweights' such
> as myself feel shitty the morning after just 2 and a half pints of
Guiness.
>
> Like I said before....IT MUST BE IBUPROFEN
>                 AT THE PRESCRIBED DOSAGE
>                 TAKEN WITH FOOD !
>
> NOT Paracetamol - NOT Panadol - NOT Aspirin !!!!! ( or any other
painkiller
> bought over the counter! )
> Mel


OK as regards alcohol and hangovers... the cause of the yucky feelings in a
hangover is dehydration of the central nervous system.  The best way to
avoid a hangover has been and always will be to drink lots of water (not
more alcohol, and not caffeine-containing substances, as both of these are
dehydrating).  So drink lots of water before, during, and after your
drinking binge and you should feel a lot better.

As regards ibuprofen... I can't see any reason why it would be an effective
preventative for a hangover.  It MIGHT be possible that ibuprofen has a
small inducer effect on liver enzymes, which could speed the metabolism of
alcohol, but the effect is probably negligible, as it is pretty well known
which drugs and which drug classes are inducers and inhibitors of the P450
system of liver enzymes (the ones that generally metabolize drugs etc. in
the body), and ibuprofen is neither an inducer or inhibitor according the
research.  As for the proposed hypothesis about antibodies in alcohol etc...
that's just a garbled mess of misinformation.  Antibodies are produced by
the immune system in response to foreign invaders.  Alcohol doesn't have
antibodies.  My personal opinion is that if there is any effect from
ibuprofen to prevent hangovers, I think it is all psychosomatic.

John Majka
flossbac at nlci.com