New research from The Netherlands suggests that downing a few glasses of water after a heavy drinking session does little to prevent the effects of too much alcohol. As to other urban myths, the study throws these to one side as well and states that the only way to prevent a hangover is to drink less alcohol.
This finding came from interviews with 800 students, conducted by researchers based at Utrecht University. Each student was asked to complete a questionnaire, and to indicate their preferred method of beating the hangover the next morning after they had consumed alcohol. It was found, after analysis, that neither drinking water nor eating food had any significant effect on the post-session headache, sweats and muscular tremors.
Of the 826 students studied:
54 percent ate food after drinking alcohol. This included fatty food, which is recommended by some as a good option for beating alcohol.
66 percent drank water while drinking alcohol.
50 percent drank water before going to bed.
None of these “remedies” proved effective.
Next, the same researchers ran the same study with 789 Canadian students and asked similar questions. The reported effects were the same. The findings were presented at a recent meeting of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology conference.
Hangovers tended to occur, The Independent newspaper reports, with students who drank heavily. Heavy drinking was defined as those who had more than 0.2 percent alcohol in their blood stream.
The problem with finding a hangover cure, lead researcher Dr Verster told BBC News, is that scientists do not know what causes a hangover: “Research has concluded that it’s not simply dehydration – we know the immune system is involved, but before we know what causes it, it’s very unlikely we’ll find an effective cure.”
For this reason, no amount of water will prove effective.
