1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday

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Speaker 1 Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger.
Today I'm here with Skeptical Sunday co-host Jessica Wynn.

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Speaker 1 Now, today, are you still feeling the aftershocks of last night's generous pour of Bubbly? Did you wake up feeling like you snacked on cotton all night? You're not alone.

Speaker 1 As common as hangovers are, there's so much we don't know about them. For as long as humans have been drinking, and it's been a long time, we've been battling hangovers.

Speaker 1 And for just as long, we've been chasing the elusive hangover cure. From vitamin B to greasy food to pickle juice, people swear by all sorts of remedies.

Speaker 1 But are any of them actually a cure for the hangover? This is Skeptical Sunday. We're diving into the haziness of hangovers and whether hangover cures are miracles or just myths.

Speaker 1 Joining me is writer and researcher Jessica Wynn.

Speaker 1 So Jessica, we have a mystery on our hands because people swear by all sorts of hangover cures from taking a shower to drinking some coffee to eating certain kind of soup.

Speaker 1 Are you hungover right now by any chance?

Speaker 3 I'm definitely not. I actually haven't had a drink in years, but wow, I could recall moments of begging any higher power to help my hangover pains.

Speaker 3 Those headaches, those heaves, those humiliations, like no thanks.

Speaker 1 As I get older, the hangovers last longer. It used to be drink all night, wake up, go to the gym back in my early 20s.
Now it's one drink at 5 p.m. the rest of the weekend.
I'm a little bit slow.

Speaker 1 I can go for a walk or two, but that's about it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, drinking's a younger man's game.

Speaker 1 It certainly is. And I'm a little disappointed that you didn't come fully prepared for this.
I did slam an entire bottle of Jaegermeister right before we hit record.

Speaker 1 So I just wanted to be in the zone.

Speaker 3 Gross. I mean, I guess I admire that commitment and I will prepare to stop recording when you have to go lay down for a second.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 All jokes aside, you know, when you run out of booze and you're like looking through your cabinets back in the day, of course, and you find that bottle of Jaegermeister and you're like, we should just drink this thing, this thing where you're supposed to have one after you eat.

Speaker 1 Let's split the bottle between the three of us. even though we are already three sheets to the wind and it's two o'clock in the morning.
And that is, if only I had better judgment when I was drunk.

Speaker 1 I think that's the problem many of us have.

Speaker 1 How do you get through a news cycle without alcohol these days? That's the real question.

Speaker 3 I mean, you know, I have my vices, don't worry, but I get it. Drinking is really fun.
When we overdo it, it's also really painful. And the hard truth is alcohol is poison.

Speaker 3 And it's a poison so addictive that despite knowing it's going to make us feel like crap, we just invent products and remedies to feel like we're battling against it instead of just not drinking it in the first place.

Speaker 3 It's insane.

Speaker 1 Alcohol, like you said, is literal poison. We wonder why we feel like garbage the next day, even with the gamble of hangovers.

Speaker 1 Alcohol is just a huge part of culture and socializing.

Speaker 3 Oh, for sure. Drinking, it has a beautiful and rich tradition, but we just don't talk about the aftermath.

Speaker 3 A few drinks and bam, you wake up in a stranger's backyard with a sprained ankle, no idea how you got there. I've heard.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so I've heard. Exactly.

Speaker 3 I mean, like I said, it's been a long time since I drank, but I've been there. I can remember the agony of very specific nights in my 20s.

Speaker 3 And I think the worst was I woke up on a plane once after a debaucherous night in Vegas. To my surprise, I'm just sitting in a puddle of red wine.
I didn't remember ordering.

Speaker 3 And next to me is this just horrified businesswoman and she's trapped as I barf and I'm warning her my head's going to explode explode when the altitude changes at landing.

Speaker 3 And I could go into so many details, but you get it. Everyone who drinks gets it.
I got home from that short flight and I was what I can only assume clinically dead for two days.

Speaker 3 I was definitely praying for death. I don't know.
What's the worst hangover you remember?

Speaker 1 Yeah, so I've probably had a few that I don't remember, thankfully, but I remember one time I went to my buddy's wedding. We drove from Michigan to D.C.

Speaker 1 So I was already tired, a little dehydrated, right? That's far. Yeah.
And we go to the wedding and we walked into the wrong wedding, which is kind of funny. And then we left promptly.

Speaker 1 Anyway, we made it to the reception and we're drinking and then suddenly it's over. And I'm like, wow, that was so fast that everything is over.
And he's like, don't worry.

Speaker 1 We're going to go to the bar in the hotel and finish and hang out. So we went to the bar in the hotel.

Speaker 1 And I remember dancing and having a lot of fun and throwing down my credit card, which I just left at the bar. I never went to go get it again.
And the thing is, my friends had driven me there.

Speaker 1 They left a little bit earlier. And I was like, I'll remember where the car is parked and I'll just walk back to the car, not realizing, hey, the car's not going to be there, dummy.
My friends left.

Speaker 1 I need to take a taxi back to their house. But that was way too advanced thinking for me.
So I walk to the parking structure at the end of the night, and it's full of cars.

Speaker 1 And I find what I think is my friend's car.

Speaker 1 And of course, it's not my friend's car. And I go, oh, they're not here.
I should just wait for them. So I didn't want them to run me over.
I didn't want anybody else to run me over.

Speaker 1 So my idea was to get up onto the hood or the trunk or whatever of that car and lay

Speaker 1 So that way they would see me when they were done and they would go, hey, Jordan, wake up. We're going to go home.
So I lay down on the car.

Speaker 1 Again, the whole garage is full of cars because of some hotel parking garage or something like that. And then in the morning, I wake up and I go, oh, I'm still on a car.
Wait a minute.

Speaker 1 That wasn't a good idea.

Speaker 1 And I look around and the entire garage is empty except for the car that I'm on, which only to me means someone came out and was like, oh, hell no, there's a guy on my car and went back into that hotel or whatever you needed to do got a ride from a friend i'm lucky i didn't get woken up by the cops or fall or fall off and i look around and i call my friend and he goes where are you and i go i'm outside he goes outside where and i was like just generally outside

Speaker 1 yeah okay when you find the house come on in here's the address i'll text it to you again i'm going back to sleep so after that i was like this is not healthy this is a bad idea look this is again it's in my 20s this is a long time hence that was one of the major wake-up calls from i remember telling people like it's a funny story story and people just going yo man you need to stop drinking and I was like maybe you're right so the worst hangovers involve a promise to never drink again until the next time of course yeah yeah always always so it's obvious to me when I'm hungover but are there clinical symptoms I have headaches but there's a lot more going on when you're hungover you just know it's an awful feeling and like I said, you pray for death, but nobody rushes to the doctor or the ER to get a diagnosis or treatment when they're hungover.

Speaker 3 You just know the symptoms are so familiar to every drinker.

Speaker 1 I do remember waking up the next day in my bed,

Speaker 1 partially dressed, shirt on the floor, pants still on, left shoe on, right shoe on the pillow beside me,

Speaker 1 and my head pounding, pounding, pounding. You know, you can hear your heart beating inside your head.

Speaker 1 That sounds about right.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, you're thirsty, you're tired, you have a horrible headache.

Speaker 3 Plus, you're cranky and sensitive, and it's often coupled with regret, like maybe the urge to fake your death and move to Cuba after you scroll through all those drunken messages on your phone.

Speaker 3 Yeah, oh, god, symptoms can be more low-grade, too, like less obvious. And there's a good chance most people listening have been technically hungover and just not realized it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, some hangovers are way more manageable than others. It's definitely unpredictable, but why are we doing this to ourselves?

Speaker 3 Any idea? Seems silly, right? Yeah, But since the first fruits developed, like 80 million years ago, living creatures have been getting drunk.

Speaker 3 Fermentation started when over-ripe fruit mixed with yeast in the air, and it created the first natural alcohols.

Speaker 3 So for animals, the high sugar content of an overly ripe fruit signaled high nutrition, leading to inadvertent intoxication among early species.

Speaker 3 But since at least 10,000 BC, humans have been purposefully mixing fermented beverages and imbibing them. There's even studies where

Speaker 3 there'll be two watering holes out in, I don't know, somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

Speaker 1 Somewhere where watering holes are, yes.

Speaker 3 Somewhere where watering holes are. One will have very little water, one will be overflowing.

Speaker 3 And researchers saw these animals going to the ones with small water and figured out that it's because that one was closer to a fruit tree, so the water in there was fermented.

Speaker 3 So even wild animals are just naturally attracted to alcohol.

Speaker 1 So that's interesting. They go, hey, there's a lot of fresh water over there.
And everyone's like, oh, don't be such a loser. Come to this one.
This is the one that has booze in it.

Speaker 3 This is the party watering hole.

Speaker 1 That's really funny. Like, hey, we need to drink water to survive.
And maybe get a little bit of a buzz. Maybe just a little bit.
We can always drink more water. There's water everywhere, man.
Chill.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Humans love to drink. I didn't realize this is literally one of the oldest human and animal traditions.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah we've always loved to drink like the greek cult of dionysus for example they worshiped their wine creating god by drinking too much meanwhile the rest of greek and roman civilizations weren't exactly teetotalers either there's not much scholarship tracing the first recorded hangover but knowing humans today it's a fair assumption that the day after hangover you know afflicted afflicted them then too so So is there a science behind hangovers?

Speaker 1 Is there a technical definition? Somebody studied this. Lots of people.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Oh, of course. It's definitely studied.
A hangover refers to those symptoms we talked about that we experience after we drink too much. There's obvious ones like the thirst, the headache, the nausea.

Speaker 3 The more subtle ones are anxiety, irritability, and increased blood pressure. So we feel hangovers differently each time we drink, and the symptoms just vary from person to person.

Speaker 1 But why do we feel like death warmed over the day after a few drinks? I get that it's from drinking, but what is happening in our bodies?

Speaker 3 It's believed we humans evolved to drink ethanol.

Speaker 3 So there's a theory called the drunken monkey hypothesis that suggests basically our ancestors developed the ability to consume ethanol to get the nutrients from the rotting fruit when other fruit was scarce.

Speaker 3 So it's like we're hardwired to get a little tipsy. Plus, alcohol gives you a nice little euphoria boost.
So it seems like a win-win.

Speaker 1 So cavemen were hungover too, I guess. We have that in common with our ancestors.
That must have been a tough day after a rotten fruit binge because you don't have Netflix back then.

Speaker 1 It's like, oh, you still want to eat today? Well, you better get your ass up.

Speaker 3 Lying on the floor of the uncomfortable cave.

Speaker 1 At least it's nice and cool in there. I guess you got that going for you.

Speaker 3 Maybe you have like some nice fermented fruit snack that takes the edge off. I don't know.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but why after all this time does it still make us feel so horrible? You'd think we would have evolved like all the people that got hangovers from drinking, they stopped drinking, so they died.

Speaker 1 I don't get it.

Speaker 3 Didn't work out that way because we really like alcohol, but it hasn't changed the effects when it hits our bloodstream. So it only takes about five minutes to reach your brain.

Speaker 3 And that's when the magic happens, or maybe the mayhem, depending on your perspective. But the effects peak in about an hour.

Speaker 3 And after that, your liver goes into overdrive, just trying to deal with the alcohol. And this throws so many things in our bodies out of whack.

Speaker 3 And then it takes hours for us to fight it and recalibrate.

Speaker 1 I can't help but wonder if in my 20s there was an app to help you drink a certain amount. I would have used it and it would have been all okay.

Speaker 1 But maybe I'm lucky that I had to count on myself to moderate, failed ridiculously, and now I don't really drink at all. But here's the other thing.

Speaker 1 I don't get hungover every time that I drink in the past even. Like I said, it used to be get up after drinking all night in your 20s and just go to the gym and you're fine.

Speaker 1 You probably reek, but whatever, you feel fine.

Speaker 3 You probably were hungover technically. Okay.
So you might not wake up with the headache, of course, but you're not taking your blood pressure the next day after drinking.

Speaker 3 So you just don't realize what your body's going through. Like not sleeping well, that's a hangover.
And meanwhile, your liver is working overtime, breaking down the alcohol and your kidneys.

Speaker 3 On top of that, alcohol is a diuretic, so your kidneys go into meltdown mode, they can't function properly. So boom, you have all these hangover symptoms, whether you realize it or not.

Speaker 3 Your entire body is working to process and eliminate the alcohol. So this means various factors can be responsible for your hangover.

Speaker 3 Alcohol is the main culprit in our hangovers, but there's other components of alcoholic beverages that can contribute to your symptoms and make a hangover worse.

Speaker 1 What other components? So there's other things in booze other than alcohol that make us hungover?

Speaker 3 Yeah, definitely just not alcohol that causes us pain. So there's stuff in our drinks like additives, sugars, congeners, and they make your hangover even nastier.

Speaker 1 What are congeners? I know what sugars and additives might be, but congeners is the new one for me.

Speaker 3 Congeners are non-alcoholic compounds, but they're byproducts of fermentation. So they give alcoholic drinks their taste and their smell, but they're also what makes your hangovers worse.

Speaker 3 Sort of obvious when you look at darker spirits like bourbon, they have way more congeners than clear spirits like vodka, which have virtually none.

Speaker 1 I see. So one, that's why I feel like I'm dying after a whiskey binge, but two, that's why all these Russians and like Yugoslav people are like, you have to drink this.

Speaker 3 It will not make you hungover.

Speaker 1 And the truth is, like, it makes you hungover, but you can drink a gallon of it because there's no congeners because they made it in their bathtub or something. Yeah, got it.

Speaker 3 The congeners party really hard in our bodies. And if you have a big sensitivity to them, they can make you feel hungover even after drinking non-alcoholic beers.

Speaker 1 Why are there still congeners in non-alcoholic beers?

Speaker 3 Because there's trace amounts of alcohol in NA beers. And along with other byproducts that it creates, like acetate or additives like hops, non-alcoholic drinks, they cause hangover symptoms.

Speaker 3 Most commonly, it seems to be a headache, but anything fermented can make us experience hangover symptoms. Kombucha, kimchi, it just depends on our personal chemical makeup.

Speaker 1 Really? So, there's sober people out there that are like getting a kimchi hangover. I love kimchi, by the way, and it's a hilarious/slash/sad that can also give you a hangover.

Speaker 1 This is what we should have studied. How much kimchi do you need to eat before you get a hangover? Because I bet it's a lot.

Speaker 3 This is the how many licks does it take to get to the center of the lollipop question. I mean it really depends on your biology.
Sure. But it is possible to get a hangover from anything fermented.

Speaker 3 Personally, I can have a sneezing fit if I just smell an IPA. I think a lot of people get that allergic reaction.
And it turns out that's a natural response to hops for most people.

Speaker 3 If you ever get stuffy after you have a pint or something, and science and history tells us our species survived because if we put a plant in our mouth and it was bitter, we'd spit it out because it signaled it was poison.

Speaker 3 So all those hopheads out there, they probably wouldn't have lasted. They probably would have popped a bitter berry in their mouths and not made it very long thousands of years ago.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's funny. They would have been like, oh man, these berries are craft, man.
They're so good.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 We have allergic reactions because we... Our primal brain is like, wait, this might be poison.

Speaker 1 Yeah, this one's made by a hipster in Brooklyn who cuts his own trees down and makes his own wood stoves. Those people wouldn't have lasted long.
And I think most of us would have been fine with that.

Speaker 1 All right, so congeners and hops. I did not know about these.
What about sulfites? I've heard this word before. I heard they're behind some hangover headaches.

Speaker 1 And I've got friends up in Silicon Valley here who are like, I only drink sulfite-free wines. I can't drink any sulfites.
I don't even know what sulfites are.

Speaker 3 Yeah, so sulfites, they're not like congeners. They're not byproducts of fermentation at all.
They're preservatives that we add to tons of food, not just wine.

Speaker 3 So let your friends know to order the sulfite-free guacamole and chips if they're that sensitive to it. It's a buzzword, but if you are sensitive to sulfites, it's definitely a thing.

Speaker 3 They can give you a headache, but skipping them in your wine, it's not going to save you from any kind of hangover.

Speaker 1 So sadly, it sounds like wine might not be as healthy as they market it. I remember like, oh, this is loaded with antioxidants.
There's resveratrol in here and the red wine. There's health benefits.

Speaker 1 Look how long French people live, even though they smoke or whatever. You hear that all the time, especially.

Speaker 1 I want to feel like in the early aughts, that's when they were like, wine's healthy for you somehow. Tim Ferriss, I'm drinking only red wine in my veins.

Speaker 3 Oh, the Sideways movie, all of that. Yes, and it made it seem like we could just slap a with antioxidants label on a wine bottle and get to pretend it's health food.

Speaker 3 But the thing is, those antioxidants, they're not coming from the ethanol. Antioxidants are a gift from the grapes.
So it's just a marketing scam.

Speaker 3 I've seen articles about the healthiest wines, but there's no evidence antioxidants in wine do anything. You could just go eat some grapes.

Speaker 1 Less fun.

Speaker 3 Less fun. But there's no need to spend the evening stumbling through a vineyard, you know, like alcohol is a known carcinogen, and no amount of antioxidants is going to make alcohol healthy.

Speaker 3 If that were true, tobacco companies would be selling antioxidant-coated cigarettes. Everybody should should just hold off on raising a wine glass to their health.

Speaker 1 Well, sort of depressing for some people for sure. I know some folks really love to fall back on the alleged benefits of drinking red wine, especially.

Speaker 1 I will say for whiskey drinkers, of which I am one, we're never like, no, it's good for you. We're like, yeah, it's killing you.
And then the guy next to you is smoking a cigar.

Speaker 1 So you're just like, okay, the gloves are off. This is a vice session.

Speaker 3 But in the moment, it feels so good.

Speaker 1 Yeah, now we're gambling. But aside from avoiding sulfites, are there other things we can do to fend off a hangover?

Speaker 3 Well, prevention is more effective than dealing with hangovers the next morning, but you can take some multivitamins or Advil before you go to sleep. That might cut down on some aches and pains.

Speaker 3 Drinking top shelf instead of cheap liquor, that also might lessen the pain.

Speaker 1 Wait a minute. So I can justify drinking nicer booze because it's an investment in not getting a hangover? Okay, you're going to have to explain that.

Speaker 1 It sounds like a pain for my wallet, but why would top shelf booze be any better than the bottle of mohawk sitting on the bottom shelf that fits conveniently in your pocket ask me how i know that revealing some of your habits there yeah how do you know that yeah that was one of those things where i remember looking at the bottom shelf and being like three dollars holy smokes what is that and i remember the guy at the store being like you don't want that man you don't want that he's like that's what guys who are sleeping outside go come in and buy and Sure enough, he was correct.

Speaker 1 I went in that store many times. And that was like the stuff that you buy when you're desperate.

Speaker 1 But the stuff on the top shelf, which is now, of course, locked or behind the little plastic thing, that's the stuff that's 80 bucks for a bottle of vodka or more.

Speaker 1 Hibiki is in there and all the Japanese whiskey. So I guess literally top shelf is better.
I just thought it was marketing, branding. What is the difference?

Speaker 3 So there's a big difference in the distillation process from grain alcohol to some really fancy tequila.

Speaker 3 And so because top shelf alcohol goes through way more distillation, it removes a lot of those congeners and other impurities.

Speaker 3 So more distillation is what makes top shelf drinks taste, you know, what we call smooth. Okay.

Speaker 1 So painkillers and alcohol in my liver, yes, an investment in health. So alcohol, congeners, sulfites, there's no escape from some hangover symptoms the next day.

Speaker 1 You're getting the trifecta slash the multifecta, if that's a word, probably.

Speaker 3 It is now, yeah.

Speaker 1 Of things that cause hangovers.

Speaker 3 I mean, yeah, exactly. People make hangovers this binary problem, but they're just like any other medical condition.
You can have mild, moderate, or severe hangovers.

Speaker 3 So it's a really complex physiological process that occurs when we consume alcohol. And the main mechanisms involved include five very familiar effects we've already touched on.
Sure.

Speaker 3 Dehydration, nausea, fluctuating blood sugar, inflammation, and just crummy sleep.

Speaker 1 I never really knew about the blood sugar, blood pressure thing that you mentioned before. I just figured it was all dehydration and my brain was dehydrated or something.

Speaker 1 And that's what I thought this was until literally right now.

Speaker 3 Dehydration is a confusing one, though, because alcohol is a diuretic, so it makes you pee more, which leads to dehydration and an electrolyte imbalance.

Speaker 3 That's why your head's pounding and your mouth's dry the next morning.

Speaker 1 I've experienced that. I think we all have.
And it's like the world is conspiring against you. Your bodies are punishing you for your decisions the next day, and it's not fun.

Speaker 1 But I thought that's why I just need to drink Gatorade or something like that. And there goes my hangover.

Speaker 3 When you're hungover, your body is just in complete revolt, and it's trying to process the poison that we poured into it. And alcohol just messes with everything.

Speaker 3 So, first off, understand it suppresses this thing called vasopressin, which is a hormone whose job it is to tell your kidneys to hold on to water.

Speaker 3 So, you just drain yourself dry, and that contributes to all the thirst and fatigue and headaches.

Speaker 1 Oh, I just figured I was peeing a lot because I was drinking a lot. Turns out that vasopressin, instead of telling my kidneys, hey, man, don't constantly pee.
We might need that.

Speaker 1 It's like, nah, do whatever you want, man. I'm taking the night off.

Speaker 3 Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 Now that makes sense. So dehydration is dangerous even when not from alcohol.
I think everybody knows that one.

Speaker 3 Yeah, right. And so many people think hangovers are just dehydration, but it's really your least worry.
There's a lot more going on than that Gatorade can handle.

Speaker 3 So there's also a thing called oxidative stress, which is a lack of antioxidants. This is why people confuse the antioxidants in wine as a good thing, but that's a misunderstanding.

Speaker 3 There's no balance there between what you lose and what wine has in it. So you also get inflammation, but the real culprit is acetaldehyde, and it gets accumulated in our bodies.

Speaker 1 So acetaldehyde, what is that?

Speaker 3 Yeah, so when your liver breaks down alcohol, it it creates acetaldehyde, which is a toxic substance. And that's what causes our nausea, our vomiting, and some of the inflammation.

Speaker 3 So it's the body teaching you a lesson in the worst way possible. There should be a simpler name for it so that we can be more connected to it.

Speaker 1 On the other hand, I'm a slow learner. It's really just spent way too many times being like, I'm going to puke now and then start over.

Speaker 1 So acetaldehyde, that's the villain in the hangover story primarily.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah. It's the thing that makes you swear off drinking as you're hugging your toilet, but it's short-lived.

Speaker 3 It's a short-lived byproduct and it makes itself known while it's around, inflaming everything, the liver, the pancreas, the brain, most of our organs. And it just causes so much discomfort.

Speaker 1 Discomfort. Okay.
Well, I've seen into the pits of hell, but I guess we can call it discomfort. I bet.

Speaker 3 I'm trying to be nice, but alcohol just messes with so much. And like we said, it puts that blood sugar on a roller coaster ride.

Speaker 3 So since our liver is overwhelmed, metabolizing the alcohol, it can't do its job controlling our blood sugar.

Speaker 1 So our livers are not great multitaskers. I can relate.
Liver, you are not alone. I never knew this, though.
Again, the blood sugar thing is a totally new thing for me.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's what makes drinking so dangerous, too. So first it makes our blood sugar spike, and that's party time.
And then our blood sugar, crashes.

Speaker 3 That's when the hangover comes in and crashes the party. That's what leads to the fatigue, the weakness that can make us pass out, also contribute to those headaches.

Speaker 3 It gives us stomach pain, gastrointestinal irritation, and that makes us not really know which end to put on the toilet.

Speaker 3 It's like your body's in a constant state of chaos the moment it has to handle alcohol.

Speaker 1 You know what feels good coming out of both ends? The money you'll save on the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back.

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Speaker 1 Hangovers are confusing. So for me, it's like, do I need sleep? Do I need medical attention? Should I lay in bed in the fetal position? Do I lay on the bathroom floor?

Speaker 1 Alcohol is so intense and I never quite know what to do with it. And I remember even in college, it was like, if someone's drunk, make sure you lay them on their side.

Speaker 1 And I was like, how is this allowed? Where, oh, you might just die. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 So they don't Hendrix.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. I mean, it's scary.
It's just all part of the way alcohol causes inflammation. So generally in life, we need inflammation.
It's a complex biological response to tissue infections.

Speaker 3 And it's like the weapon our bodies have to fend off all kinds of infections. But alcohol-induced inflammation, that's an immediate response to alcohol.

Speaker 3 It's our body just yelling to our immune system, like, hey, something's not right. It's why our noses turn red, our cheeks get flushed.

Speaker 3 So, that warm feeling your drink gives you, it's really your insides in panic mode. And let's not forget that hangover messes with your sleep.

Speaker 3 So, alcohol suppresses REM sleep, which means even if you do pass out, you're not getting quality rest.

Speaker 1 I have definitely woken up feeling terrible from a drink-induced sleep. It's the worst, especially when you wake up at 2 a.m.
and you're like, I'm ready for the day, but I might still be drunk.

Speaker 1 It just feels like you didn't sleep at all.

Speaker 3 Exactly. And your body is trying to heal, but the alcohol that's still in your system, it just won't let you.
So this is what contributes all that fatigue and irritability.

Speaker 3 And we don't always connect that to that daily glass of wine with dinner. But science tells us even a few drinks a week will mess up our sleep.

Speaker 3 So people might fall asleep faster after drinking alcohol, but like you said, like your sleep's fragmented. You wake up at weird times.
You tend to wake up earlier. We're all out of whack.

Speaker 1 This all checks out. It's all starting to sound like one giant biological middle finger, but some people never seem to suffer from a hangover at all, which I'm angry at those people.

Speaker 1 You're on the air.

Speaker 3 Hi, what's wrong with Joan?

Speaker 1 She has a bad hangover, which she is pretending is allergies. Is she gonna be okay? Wouldn't know.
Never been hungover.

Speaker 1 After I've had too much whiskey, I cook myself a large flank steak pan-fried in salted butter. I eat that, put on a pair of wet socks, and go to sleep.
That works? It does.

Speaker 1 Wet socks got me on that. I think the flank steak actually might make some sense.
I don't know. The whole blood sugar thing.
Who knows?

Speaker 3 It just depends on who you are. Genetic factors play a big role in our hangovers.
So some people, like Ron Swanson, they're just built better to to process alcohol while it hits others harder.

Speaker 3 So your metabolism, your age, weight, gender, all of it plays into how severe your hangover is.

Speaker 3 So when someone claims they don't get hangovers, their genes are doing them a huge favor by just quietly processing their alcohol.

Speaker 3 It's still doing damage inside, but they're just not getting those tangible effects.

Speaker 1 I was going to say, I'm so jealous, but then I was like, oh, good.

Speaker 1 And now I feel bad because they're still still going to have all the negative effects of alcohol, but they don't get the wake-up call like someone like me who goes, oh, I need to stop doing this to my body.

Speaker 1 They're like, I don't feel anything. I can keep drinking forever.
And it makes sense. That's why I've got buddies that can just drink like fish and they never complain.
And they're 45, 50 years old.

Speaker 1 And I'm over here praying for a miracle after two and a half beers. Okay, what about the whole beer before liquor, never been sicker thing? Is there any truth to that?

Speaker 3 People really want there to be some magic formula. Like we can beat the system by following some weird drinking rules, but there's just no evidence the order you consume drinks matters.

Speaker 3 It's just a fun thing to say.

Speaker 1 So I always assumed that booze before beer, liquor before beer, you're in the clear. I thought that was because let's say I start drinking booze and then I'm like, oh, I better stop.

Speaker 1 And then I drink beer. Now I'm drinking less alcohol and more water much more slowly because the beer is much larger.
You know, you're drinking a four ounce shot than you're drinking a 20 ounce beer.

Speaker 1 It takes you like an hour. That said, I tested this repeatedly in my 20s and I was never in the clear, like ever.
Never happened.

Speaker 3 Yeah. When you try to bring logic to drinking, you just sound drunk.
Here's the thing. Hangovers are they're nature's way of telling you you consumed poison.
Nothing's going to reverse that.

Speaker 3 Definitely not a late night beer.

Speaker 3 But drinking patterns can make a little bit of a difference. So if you've ever drank, you probably realized it hits you differently when you drink on an empty stomach.

Speaker 3 The amount of alcohol, of course, matters. The type of alcohol you have and just your overall health.
These patterns all influence the severity of a hangover.

Speaker 3 And in general, the more alcohol a person drinks, the worse the hangover will be. And this is true regardless of if you drink beer, wine, tequila, or any kind of combination.

Speaker 3 Your Jaeger bomb you had earlier. Oh, God.

Speaker 1 Even the smell of that now I can't deal with. All right, no magic tricks, but is there any any science behind all the remedies that people swear by? Because there's a lot of stuff out there.

Speaker 3 There's a lot of stuff. Hangovers are a really tricky study.
And there's a doctor, Dr. Jason Burke, who founded Hangover Heaven and is a quote-unquote leading hangover expert.

Speaker 1 So there are hangover experts. I missed my calling, apparently.

Speaker 3 It's a small field and a questionable one. Sure.
But yeah, Hangover Heaven is a medical clinic and it claims it can cure cure your hangover if you just come in for some IV treatment in the morning.

Speaker 3 They also have a mobile unit if you can't crawl in their door. So I don't think this business would survive anywhere else, but he's based in Vegas.

Speaker 3 Anyway, he does have some interesting things he points out that hangover studies are incredibly problematic.

Speaker 3 Participants are only allowed to reach a blood alcohol level of 0.1. Amateurs.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I mean, you can get that from kombucha probably. So it's not that high for research purposes.
Likewise, most studies, they need a control group, right?

Speaker 3 And that can be hard to find when so many factors play into individual experiences of a hangover. It's not the same every time.
So he just pumps people full of hydration.

Speaker 3 And after a few hours, of course, they feel better.

Speaker 1 It's hilarious somehow that there are rules against getting people too drunk for actual science. I know.
But if you just want to drink yourself into oblivion and fall asleep on a bar at 3 p.m.

Speaker 1 anywhere else in America, totally fine. Hashtag freedom.
You can sleep under this craps table. But no, if you want to study something, that's unethical.
Sorry, we can't allow you to.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you want to go into a car park and sleep on a hood? Yeah, fine.

Speaker 1 Hey, that's fine. Apparently that's legal.
I thought this was America.

Speaker 3 Our government doesn't really have its priorities straight there. But if you're a college kid studying science, yeah, go get blackout drunk.

Speaker 1 PhD.

Speaker 3 Yeah, too bad. Meanwhile, Michael Pollan.

Speaker 1 Michael Pollen, he was on the show talking about psychedelics psychedelics and plants. That was episode 81.

Speaker 3 Yeah, he's terrific. He wins awards for scientifically eating facefuls of mushrooms, right? But there's no shroom breathalyzer, so he'd never be able to do those studies with alcohol.

Speaker 1 I guess the ethics of studying hangovers is a touchy subject.

Speaker 1 So we've talked about hydrating in Advil, but what about the famously greasy burger or a big bowl of pasta or whatever is Taco Bell late night? That place is essentially kept alive by a post-2 a.m.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so food seems to be what comes to my rescue. And at least that's what I used to tell myself at 2 a.m.
when I'm in the drive-thru. I also wondered, does it just slow the absorption of alcohol?

Speaker 1 I mean, there's all kinds of theories behind why people stuff their face when drunk.

Speaker 3 Yeah, food, if you drink on a full stomach, food definitely slows down the absorption of alcohol, but your body's still going to get it all.

Speaker 3 So you want to eat before you start sipping because it can maintain how quickly it goes into our system.

Speaker 3 But that said, if you're feeling rough the next morning, bland foods or fruits or whatever you like that can help raise your blood sugar and relieve some nausea.

Speaker 3 So sure, have a snack, but it's not a cure.

Speaker 1 Okay, it just seems so comforting to sit down to a big ass brunch when you're hungover.

Speaker 1 And I definitely crave carbs and protein when I'm suffering, but does it do anything or is it just giving me a dopamine rush that sort of gives a shellacking to my headache?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think you could already gather the answer to that. But the concept of brunch was actually created to cater to people with hangovers.

Speaker 1 What? Is that actually true? That seems like too convenient somehow.

Speaker 3 Brunch was coined by an English writer named Guy Behringer in 1895. And he proposed the idea of a combined breakfast, lunch, meal.
He wrote this essay called Brunch, a plea.

Speaker 3 You know, he wanted people to be able to sleep in on Sundays after a night of drinking and then enjoy a leisurely meal to ease all their hangover symptoms.

Speaker 3 And he writes in the article, quote, we need a meal served around noon that starts with tea or coffee, marmalade, which makes sense, right?

Speaker 3 It's raising our blood sugar, and then other breakfast fixtures before moving along to heavier fare to beat that morning hangover and quote, make life brighter for Saturday night carousers.

Speaker 1 Carousers, definitely a funny word. So before brunch was a verb associated with waiting in line for two hours next to an army of tech bros for some sort of souffle.

Speaker 1 It was actually a hangover remedy. I like it.
Brunch is the ultimate enabler.

Speaker 3 Totally. But I get it, though.

Speaker 1 Chowing down on Eggs Benedict and an artfully mixed Bloody Mary with a bale of slice of bacon in it or something. I mean, that sounds good even right now.

Speaker 1 I might have to grab that for lunch or brunch, I guess. I mean, maybe I'll just stick with the tomato juice part since I'm 45, something, something inflammation.

Speaker 3 It's funny you say that, though, because Eggs Benedict, which is one of the most popular hangover remedies, was invented specifically for brunch.

Speaker 3 Because drinking and eating, they've always had a symbiotic relationship. And now the restaurants know what we want.

Speaker 3 They've got hangover menus with breakfast burgers and disco fries, like the whole works.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but why does alcohol make these cravings for fatty and carb-heavy foods stronger? Or is that just my imagination slash lowered willpower when you're still a little bit drunk?

Speaker 3 It's definitely not your imagination, so don't feel bad. Your willpower is fine.
There was a 2004 study. It actually discovered a chemical called galanin,

Speaker 3 which makes us want to gorge on fats. And it leads to this never-ending cycle of brunching and drinking because

Speaker 3 as William Gruchow, who's a professor at University of North Carolina, he studied this and he wrote, quote, galanin increases appetite for fats and consumption of fats causes more galanin to be produced.

Speaker 3 And then alcohol intake also results in increased gallanin production. So alcohol cranks up the gallanin and our french fry cravings, they just go crazy.

Speaker 1 Huh. Okay, so brunch became something to market to all the hungover folks, which is actually pretty smart.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, it's all about comfort. It's just not curing anything.
So it feels like a brief relief, but your body's just still reeling.

Speaker 3 And it's hard to notice, though, when things like Red Robin's Cure Burger made from chili, cheddar, bacon, mushrooms, and oozing eggs served with all these fries are offered to us.

Speaker 1 So it sounds disgusting right now, but it is definitely some food that I would want when I'm hungover. The gallon is.
A little bit of a bummer to realize it's just like a culinary band-aid.

Speaker 3 It's not the worst thing in that moment, though, if it gives you some just sweet relief.

Speaker 3 Milton Crawford wrote a book called The Hangover Cookbook, and it's interesting because he doesn't believe finding a cure has to be the point of the next day.

Speaker 3 In other words, he's just saying food is a comfort, not a medicine, which is absolutely true. And for sure, foods were always used maybe in all cultures to cure hangovers.

Speaker 1 Really? What foods have people tried besides eggs, Benedict, and some insane variations of a hamburger?

Speaker 3 The one thing that seems to span the ages is cabbage.

Speaker 3 Ancient Greeks and Egyptians through to people today have advocated for cabbage in all its forms as a hangover remedy, raw cabbage, sauerkraut, whatever.

Speaker 3 Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder, there's actually a beer named after. So I guess he was a big drinker.

Speaker 1 I've heard of this guy, and not just because of the beer, but I think he's kind of everywhere. He's a big brand, big personal brand.

Speaker 3 He had a hangover cure that was eating raw owl's eggs and fried canary when he was feeling shitty.

Speaker 1 We eat chicken eggs and fried chicken, but somehow that sounds way more disgusting so it sounds mean right yeah like you're just robbing an owl's nest for some stupid cure that doesn't even work

Speaker 3 and then fast forward to the middle ages people were chugging pulverized raw eel and bitter almonds this was like the original hangover smoothie it just gets grosser from there raw owl eggs is gross the pulverized raw eel sounds like something that could actually kill you if you're not careful

Speaker 3 i know there's other classics like pickled herring, fermented fish.

Speaker 3 There's a thing in Germany called roll mops, and that's pickled herring that's rolled around, pickled onion, or just pickles.

Speaker 1 They love their pickles. That sounds good.
I'm weird with the fermented stuff. I like it.

Speaker 3 It's probably tasty.

Speaker 1 Probably very, well, flavorful in any case.

Speaker 3 And in the Middle Ages, they called it kaderfushtak, which means hangover breakfast. And then Korea touts its own hangover soup, hejanguk, and that's their remedy, which is congealed blood beef stew.

Speaker 1 Hopefully better than it sounds.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'd rather have the roamops. And then in Scandinavia, they have serstrommung, which is canned and it's fermented herring.
It is famously described as the world's smelliest food.

Speaker 1 Serstroming or something like that. My friend Johan, of course, in Sweden, we go there and he's like, want to try this? I was like, sure.
It's the world's smelliest food and all this.

Speaker 1 And he tells us, never open it indoors because it's pressurized because it's fermented. And it's literally the gas is like about to burst these things open and they do explode occasionally.

Speaker 1 I was like, okay. So he couldn't get the can open.
So he stabs it with a knife in his kitchen. And I'm like, okay, I thought you said not to do that.

Speaker 1 And of course, the second he did, it starts squirting the most foul smelling, like a port-a-potty tipped over smell. in his house.

Speaker 1 And his wife is like, I'm going to take that knife out and murder you with it. I agree with her.
Yes. And he's like, oh, I knew not to do that.
and I did it anyway.

Speaker 1 And then luckily it only got on the window in the sink. So he was able to open all the windows and clean it out.

Speaker 1 And then you take it outside or where it's supposed to be anyways and you spread it on these cracker things or whatever. Again, it smells so bad that it would trigger anyone's gag reflex.

Speaker 1 But then when you eat it, it's actually really tasty, which is bizarre.

Speaker 1 It's kind of like stinky cheese, except for instead of the stinky cheese smell that you have when you have the cheese, it's like the cheese is inside your nose, but then multiplied times whatever, and you can't get rid of it.

Speaker 1 And that's what it smells like outside. So this is the kind of thing if you open it, your neighbors could smell it.

Speaker 3 I'm getting sick.

Speaker 1 So I actually brought some home. When we were on the plane, I turned to Jen and I was like, wait a minute, do you think the can will explode from the pressure? And she's like, I don't know.

Speaker 1 That's a really good question. And I was really nervous during takeoff and landing because if that thing explodes on the plane, one, all your clothes are ruined, first of all.

Speaker 1 Secondly, the entire plane is going to want to kill you.

Speaker 3 200 people out to get you.

Speaker 1 Yes, for the next, I don't know, whatever it was, like nine hours from Sweden back to LAX.

Speaker 1 So if you thought you had it bad coming back from Vegas, how about an entire airplane vomiting and being like, who did this?

Speaker 1 And you're just like, not me, said the guy with the suitcase that you can smell from across the airport.

Speaker 3 I can't believe after the experience, you still were like, yeah, I'll bring that home.

Speaker 1 I was like, we need to show this to our friends and have a party. And it was like, let's just bring some home in a bag.
Oh, wait a minute. This is a terrible idea, potentially.

Speaker 1 Dangerous. I heard now it's actually banned from some airlines.
Although that might be one of those urban legend things where it's like, oh, it's so stinky. It's banned.
It might not be.

Speaker 3 Oh, I wonder. Yeah, what happens at customs when you come home with it?

Speaker 1 You don't have to declare this. There's an attacks on it.
I'm just telling you, this is a terrible idea. You do not want to bring this back.

Speaker 1 So what's the basis of thinking that smelly foods will cure a hangover? Is it the smell or?

Speaker 3 I'm not really certain, but I I guess the thinking is that a stronger fermented food will combat the fermented drink, but I don't know for sure.

Speaker 3 But if you think that all sounds gross, for a long time, there was another less appetizing hangover remedy that was highly trusted called rabbit dung tea.

Speaker 1 Oh, that can't be literal. Is that actual rabbit poop tea?

Speaker 3 Oh, it's real. So, good old American cowboys

Speaker 3 knew that any good manure has a lot of healthy nitrogen, potassium, and minerals. And they also believed that those were the things good for a hangover.

Speaker 3 So they figured, hey, why don't we just steep some bunny poop in hot water and guzzle it? It was the really popular practice in the Wild West.

Speaker 1 Cool, this coffee smells like shit.

Speaker 1 It is shit, Austin. Oh, good, then it's not just me.

Speaker 1 That's what this reminds me of. Oh, that is vile.
I don't know how I would have survived in those days.

Speaker 1 Between the saloon brawls and the quick draw duels because you stepped on someone's foot or whatever and chugging rabbit shit tea. It's just such a disgusting place.

Speaker 1 What about drinking a cup of coffee for crying out loud? They had coffee back then. Come on, man.

Speaker 3 There's no scientific evidence coffee can do. anything for a hangover.
And actually, caffeine's found to worsen those symptoms. So caffeine is another diuretic, which means it further dehydrates you.

Speaker 3 And caffeine actually narrows your blood vessels. It also raises your blood pressure.
And this will just amplify that pounding inside of your head.

Speaker 3 Drinking water is a better choice, but it doesn't give you that momentary jolt that we get from coffee.

Speaker 1 And now, while I go brew a steaming, fragrant pot of rabbit shit tea, I'll leave you with this word from our sponsors. We'll be right back.
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Speaker 1 I thought the rule was when you're drunk, you're not supposed to drink coffee. So you're not even supposed to drink it the next morning for the hangover.

Speaker 1 I suppose that's good to know because usually when I was hungover in the past, I would just load up on caffeine. So does drinking more alcohol help with a hangover?

Speaker 1 Because I've heard, you know, the whole hair of the dog recommendation, like, oh, have a beer in the morning and then it'll be better.

Speaker 3 Yeah, hair of the dog, it's really interesting because, yes,

Speaker 3 having an alcoholic drink in the morning after a night of drinking will help you avoid hangover symptoms, but you're not curing anything. You're not cheating the hangover.

Speaker 3 You're just stopping your blood alcohol from returning to zero. And when our blood alcohol returns to zero, that's when the hangover symptoms really kick in.

Speaker 3 So you can keep drinking, but you'll eventually face those hangover symptoms.

Speaker 1 Okay, so that actually works then from the sound of it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, it might temporarily minimize your symptoms. I just want to stress this, not recommended.

Speaker 1 Okay, but why?

Speaker 3 Not only is there no concrete evidence that more alcohol will always help you feel better, it could also indicate a sign of dependency. I see.

Speaker 3 So internal medicine specialists, they'll tell you that you're only overwhelming your liver more, which is already working over time.

Speaker 3 And it turns into a vicious cycle that there's actually a name for. It's called alcoholism.
I see.

Speaker 3 Okay. The whole idea of hair of the dog just comes from medieval magic talk.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I suppose drinking a beer at seven o'clock in the morning should raise flags. Okay.
Is that where the phrase comes from?

Speaker 1 Because I thought it was from like a Led Zeppelin song or something, but it's that much older. It's an old expression.

Speaker 3 It was a real thing. Okay.
It was a real thing in medieval Europe. People believed that if you were bit by a rabid dog, you should place hair from the rabid dog on the wound to help it heal.

Speaker 3 I guess they had a big problem with rabid dogs in medieval times. This idea was based on the philosophy that like cures like, which dates all the way back to ancient Greece.

Speaker 3 So over time, the saying morphed into the idea that more alcohol will fix a hangover. Spoiler.
This only delays the hangover until your blood alcohol level is at zero.

Speaker 1 Okay, it almost makes sense. If I just keep drinking, I'll feel better.
So ultimately, the only surefire remedy for a hangover is by drinking in moderation.

Speaker 1 That doesn't sound right to me now that I've said it out loud.

Speaker 3 Drinking in moderation is just, unfortunately, it's another bullshit saying, just like Hair of the Dog.

Speaker 3 So study after study from Harvard to Northwestern to Oxford all show that no amount of alcohol is safe. And moderation, it's all just marketing spin.

Speaker 1 Man, that's harsh and quite rich coming from a trio of universities that all rejected me immediately.

Speaker 3 Oh, no.

Speaker 3 Well, you're in good company, Jordan.

Speaker 1 I mean, ouch. Yeah, the truth does sting.
Rejection hangover.

Speaker 3 Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3 Anyway, there's just so many variables into what creates the severity of a hangover. And those moderation studies, they've been manipulated with just unreliable control groups.

Speaker 1 But studies have come out about the health benefits of a drink a day or the supposed good that moderate drinking can do for your body or for your health. I kind of mentioned that earlier, right?

Speaker 1 Like French people live so long because of the wine. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I mean, it's actually become known that, you know, studies show scam.

Speaker 3 So in 2018, the New York Times exposed several alcohol studies that were conveniently funded by the alcohol industry.

Speaker 3 And these ended up with so much flawed data because they didn't factor in how they chose the non-drinkers in the control groups.

Speaker 3 And it turned out out that the people, they were either already sick as hell for reasons that have nothing to do with drinking, they were former drinkers who already have bad health effects from all the drinking they did, or people who can't afford drinking, which I guess their assumption was they're going to have bad health because they're lower income.

Speaker 3 But these studies are, they're just so irresponsible because people who label themselves moderate drinkers, they're out there thinking a glass of wine is a heart attack prevention strategy.

Speaker 3 But the reality is, if the control group wasn't manipulated, the studies would show zero health advantages to being a moderate drinker.

Speaker 3 So subsequently, from the New York Times article, all these studies were shut down. And it just shows no amount of alcohol is good for you.

Speaker 3 The moderation thing, you know, in your own experience, have you ever had a hangover after just one drink? Oh, geez.

Speaker 1 I feel like I've been confused when hungover because I'm like, I didn't even drink that much to warrant this hell.

Speaker 1 I've also felt like I should have been hungover on days and I'm not. And it's like, wait a minute, I had seven drinks last night and I'm fine.

Speaker 1 But a few weeks before, I had two beers and I just can't function the next day. It's all over the place.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, it is. And it's just so hard to predict, but we do know hangover symptoms peak.
when we stop drinking after the blood alcohol gets to zero.

Speaker 3 We do know that the symptoms can last for 24 hours or so. And so the higher higher you get your blood alcohol level, the longer it will seem like your hangover lasts.

Speaker 1 I know a lot of people who swear by Gatorade or they drink coconut water. Are drinks like that doing anything? Or are we just throwing money at the problem/slash drinking expensive water?

Speaker 3 Yeah. And the only thing coconut water is going to do is hydrate you enough to accept that you did this to yourself.

Speaker 3 Sports drinks, they're just marketing in disguise. We discussed this in an episode we did about hydrotherapy, which was number 1046.

Speaker 3 So technically these companies can say their drinks help with dehydration and electrolyte imbalance because they contain sodium and potassium.

Speaker 3 So it might satisfy an instant craving in your taste buds, but your organs are doing all the hard work balancing your electrolytes and other things.

Speaker 3 So research has not found any correlation between drinking those Gatorades and things that are are heavy with electrolytes and the severity of hangovers.

Speaker 3 So, in most people, your body quickly restores the electrolyte balance on its own once the effects of alcohol subside.

Speaker 3 So, your body really has this whole restoration thing down and throwing some vitamin water at it, that's fine if it makes you feel better, but your body's just going to say, look, I'll take care of the physiology.

Speaker 3 You deal with the consequences of your poor decisions.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I really want there to to be a magic elixir, but I guess that's just what comforts a lot of us, huh?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, our bodies aren't stupid. We know when we've been poisoned.
So you can throw all the antioxidants and Gatorade at it you want. The coconut water, it's not going to save you.

Speaker 3 So we just need to stop pretending there's some magic cure because there isn't one. You just got to ride it out.

Speaker 1 So what about popping Advil and Tylenol? Do the painkillers do anything or is it just like that gets rid of your headache, which is the worst for some people?

Speaker 3 Yeah, sure. It'll help your headaches, probably.
But however, acetaminophen, which is in Tylenol, can cause liver damage on its own, and it's worse when combined with alcohol.

Speaker 3 So, as long as it's not a habit, a pain reliever is fine, but you just have to watch your liver.

Speaker 1 Liver damage is really scary. So, hangovers are not just painful.
It sounds like they're actually dangerous or an indication.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, definitely both painful and dangerous. Don't forget, during a hangover, like that next day, we have all kinds of lingering effects of the alcohol.

Speaker 3 It messes with our attention, our decision making, our coordination, even things like that.

Speaker 3 So if you're consistently hungover, you might want to stop and think about the damage you're doing long term.

Speaker 1 Okay, so there's not a 12-step hangover cure, but effectiveness aside. What are the most common and traditional hangover cures?

Speaker 3 We've mentioned a lot of them, right? You know, sipping liquids, eating fatty foods, just going back to bed and letting your body recover if you can.

Speaker 3 So a person just has to wait for the body to finish clearing the toxic byproducts of alcohol out. And we need to rehydrate.

Speaker 3 We need to heal our irritated tissue and restore, you know, our immune and brain activity to normal. So there's no way to speed up the brain's recovery from alcohol use.

Speaker 3 No amount of coffee or showers or greasy foods are going to rush the process.

Speaker 1 Okay, but I see a ton of ads for all kinds of hangover cures and I see them on shelves at gas stations stations and 7-Eleven. Do those do anything? What are those about?

Speaker 3 Think about it. If someone had the cure for a hangover, they would be wildly famous and wealthy and just known for these huge breakthroughs.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's Nobel Prize territory, I suppose.

Speaker 3 Right, exactly. So those ads and products, they're just modern-day snake oil.
People buy into them because they promise you can drink as much as you want and still feel fine the next day.

Speaker 3 But the science behind these, it's all smoke and mirrors. And I do wonder too, like, how much of it's psychosomatic.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I have people that swear by these too in the past. There are many of these alternative remedies marketed for hangovers.

Speaker 1 If you go to a 7-Eleven, there's probably a whole shelf with just different types of anti-hangover nonsense.

Speaker 3 Oh, sure. And people buy them because they're desperate for the relief, right? But studies haven't found any natural remedies that consistently improve hangovers.

Speaker 3 Some of these best-selling hangover cures, they're supplements, they're they're pills, they're drinks, and they're natural, but that doesn't always mean they're safe.

Speaker 3 So, these products might help you with a headache or your body aches or nausea, but no more than taking Tylenol. In fact, the main ingredient in a lot of them is acetaminophen.

Speaker 3 So, you're just buying expensive Tylenol.

Speaker 1 I see. So, instead of buying a tablet of Tylenol, I'm getting like a hot pink bottle, red contents, sugar-flavored Tylenol packed into a 12-ounce beverage instead of just for $3 or $5.

Speaker 3 Capitalism at its finest. Right.

Speaker 1 Yes. So who profits off the cures, the diners and the dive bars and the people marketing these things or what?

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's actually recorded. So the hangover cure products market, which is a thing, its size was valued at $2 billion

Speaker 3 in 2023. And it's expected to grow to almost $7 billion by 2032.
My God. That's almost 15% growth.
So the the market is definitely counting on drinking and hangovers to stick around.

Speaker 1 You know, I was hoping that drinking was going to go the way of cigarettes, where young kids now, they vape instead, and they were like, I would never touch a cigarette.

Speaker 1 I was kind of hoping that they're all like, yeah, I just take edible weed in low doses instead of getting blackout drunk and not knowing where I am. I was hoping there was some sort of shift.

Speaker 1 Actually, weed is a lot healthier and better.

Speaker 3 But when you mix it with the alcohol, it's a whole different kind of hangover. Yeah, I know.

Speaker 1 None of this stuff is healthy, but but there's no way I didn't cause long-term damage to my brain and body drinking as much as I did in my 20s. And it was so dumb.
And I didn't even like it.

Speaker 1 I was just doing it because other people were doing it. Anyway, so drinking's not going anywhere.
Hangover cures aren't going anywhere. There's so many homegrown, unusual cultural cures.

Speaker 1 I bought into the pickle juice thing at one point. What's going on with the pickle juice thing? What's that about?

Speaker 3 So drinking a jar of pickle juice after drinking, that's a Polish tradition.

Speaker 1 Yes, I did it in Europe. That's right.

Speaker 3 It's become pretty popular in the States as people take a shot and then pickle back or something. Yes, pickleback.
That's right.

Speaker 1 Yes, that's big in the Midwest.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yes. And the theory goes that naturally fermented pickles, think of the Romops, they're full of probiotics.

Speaker 3 So pickles also contain electrolytes and that's thought to maintain the fluid balance in our bodies. Just like anything else you're eating, it might bring you some comfort if you like pickles.

Speaker 3 But let's be real.

Speaker 3 If you just rest and hydrate, you'll feel better without the juice i see i don't know about a whole jar of pickle juice how big is the jar when i did the pickleback i want to say it was a shot of whatever it was and then a shot of pickle juice which i thought was a funny thing to be serving at a bar yeah i always thought it was because you buy pickles what the hell do you do with all that leftover brine juice yeah you market it as a cure yeah sure exactly why not Yeah, if it's too much to handle, drinking all the pickle juice, there are herbal remedies that'll probably go down easier.

Speaker 3 There's ginger and peppermint tea, which people say helps with their nausea. There's milk thistle that is supposed to help your liver function.

Speaker 3 But I bet taking these homemade remedies is also accompanied with several hours of rest. So, if you just rested without the peppermint pickle smoothie, you know, you'd feel better too.

Speaker 1 Peppermint pickle, that made me feel a little bit sick, not gonna lie. That's disgusting.

Speaker 3 Here, drink this, it's for your hangover.

Speaker 3 It smells gross.

Speaker 6 Well, then you better drink it fast.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'm gonna throw a- Oh!

Speaker 1 That's a hangover cure?

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 1 Yeah, what a great show.

Speaker 1 So are there less stomach-churning remedies?

Speaker 3 Yeah, according to Puerto Ricans, rubbing a slice of lemon under your armpits before a drinking session will prevent dehydration and headaches.

Speaker 3 The idea here is that the body's going to absorb that hydrating citrus juice, which also cleanses away the toxic effects of alcohol and is going to deliver those vitamins to your system.

Speaker 1 Okay, well, that's obviously a wife's tale. I'm curious to hear from our Puerto Rican listeners.
Is that a thing you've heard of?

Speaker 1 Because that seems like a thing that maybe would have died out with this generation. That is so bizarre.
I don't think an armpit lemon is going to do the trick.

Speaker 1 I guess it's a pleasant scent at the bar. Sunburned tourists marinating in a tropical climate while drinking.
probably could use a little bit of a lemon-y glow up.

Speaker 3 I'm wondering now when you go to a resort, it's a trick they're playing on tourists.

Speaker 1 Exactly. The Puerto Ricans are like, oh, I already did mine at home, but you should definitely put this lemon under your armpit, you stanky ass Ohian Eureka.

Speaker 3 I mean, it gets weirder though. So ancient Egyptians and Greeks, they wore carefully selected plants on their heads to avoid hangovers.
Okay.

Speaker 3 Some cultures just cast a spell over their beers before drinking them.

Speaker 3 Or we could do as Athedians did, who preferred a frog drown in their alcohol before they drank so that they wouldn't get hungover.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's insane. Poor frogs.
And also, that sounds like something that could make you way sicker than a hangover.

Speaker 3 I know.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I put a dead frog in there.

Speaker 3 Ugh. So weird.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 So we talked about the Brits inventing brunch, but traditionally their go-to hangover cure was tomato juice and raw eggs. Okay.
And there's always a little bit of science here.

Speaker 3 Like the egg yolk contains amino acids. That's thought to help expel alcohol toxins.
Meanwhile, the tomato juice is rich in those antioxidants we love and other vitamins.

Speaker 3 So there's nothing wrong with eating this. There's just no evidence it does a damn thing.

Speaker 1 Just humans trying to outsmart a nasty habit that we should probably quit doing.

Speaker 3 There's another weird belief that's pretty popular right now that activated charcoal can be taken in pill form.

Speaker 1 That's a real thing, though, right? I've heard of this.

Speaker 3 We should see.

Speaker 3 It says it'll trap the toxins and chemicals that alcohol releases into the bloodstream, but activated charcoal, it is a favorite of wellness enthusiasts, but I assume this is just going to be a wellness trend.

Speaker 3 The science shows it only absorbs toxins in your stomach, not in your blood. can actually make you feel worse because it's soaking up other nutrients your body needs.

Speaker 3 So I don't know all the facts about the activated charcoal, but the little bit I read, I would stay away from taking the stuff for probably anything, but especially a hangover.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I've heard of this only in the context of you eat something really bad and then it's in your stomach and you should take it and then you're supposed to vomit.

Speaker 1 It's not like, oh, there's something in my body and blood. I'm going to take this.
You eat something that you know is bad and you take it and then you puke up the whole shebang.

Speaker 3 Oh, like Ipacac or something.

Speaker 1 Yeah, kind of. And it's supposed to absorb stuff, but then you're supposed to get rid of it, not just digest it.
A lot of these cures, they sound worse than the hangover.

Speaker 1 Can you sweat it out by exercising? That used to be one of my strategies. As I mentioned, drink all night, go to the gym.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it doesn't work that way, unfortunately.

Speaker 3 Alcohol is metabolized through the liver. So exercising ends up being this really subjective remedy, right? It depends on which kind of hangover you have.
Is it just fatigue and anxiety?

Speaker 3 Then maybe, you know, a run could give you a little boost of energy. But if you're nauseous and you have a headache, exercise might worsen your hangover.

Speaker 3 And that's even if you can drag yourself out of bed to go work out.

Speaker 1 Okay. So I'm going to go ahead and guess saunas are also not something you should maybe do.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, it's the same. If you're hungover, you're already dehydrated.
So just like exercise, it's really subjective.

Speaker 3 If it'll give you any relief, and it's certainly not a cure, but if it makes you feel better the day after, just monitor yourself.

Speaker 1 Yeah, going for a swim or whatever. So can we get hungover from other things? Is there such thing as a weed hangover, for example?

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah, I was going to say, of course, anything that messes with our blood sugar or dehydrates you, gives us any of those symptoms, that's a hangover.

Speaker 3 So weed, sure, caffeine, even if we just have crummy sleep, like anything that throws off our system can give us a technical hangover.

Speaker 1 That's funny because it sounds like many of the things we try to use to cure hangovers actually just cause hangovers.

Speaker 3 Right. I mean, you have kids.
If they have a crazy night of eating sugar, like they're probably

Speaker 3 still a little weird the next day.

Speaker 1 Good. I should probably wean them off the goods.

Speaker 3 But, oh, I wanted to tell you there's a hangover cure playlist on Spotify that claims to have brainwaves that will make you feel better. But it turns out the playlist is like a couple hours long.

Speaker 3 So it's really just the time that you're laying there listening that's healing you. Sound is definitely not a cure for poison, unfortunately, no matter how good that mixtape is.
So

Speaker 3 a hangover, it's the price of admission to a lifestyle with alcohol, and there's no getting around paying that in full.

Speaker 3 So if you're going to drink, find the fun and comfort attached to all the hangover stuff.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's the spirit. So the medical answer here is pretty boring.
Drink water and don't fall for consuming weird substances.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's it. Hydrate, give your body time to recover.
That's really the best you can do. So everything else, it's just a comforting distraction.

Speaker 3 And it's like we said, it's not about curing the hangover. It's about surviving it.
So just lean into what makes you feel best.

Speaker 1 Solid advice. So bottom line, folks, hangovers suck.
There's no miracle cure. You just have to face the music on that Spotify playlist.

Speaker 1 Deal with your life choices and remember that this too shall pass. Or you'll eventually crawl to the next bad decision with a little extra help from your friends in the alcohol industry.

Speaker 1 In all seriousness, talk to a healthcare professional if regular hangovers affect your quality of life, your personal relationships, your performance at school or work, because the whole I might be an alcoholic thing is real serious.

Speaker 1 And if you can nip it in the butt early, that is much better than living a decade or more with this. Treatment for problems with alcohol is widely available.
I don't really drink that much anymore.

Speaker 1 All the jokes aside from this episode, I'm like a one drink per month kind of guy at this rate. And usually it's like, I'm in heaven old fashioned with my lunch for someone's birthday.

Speaker 1 And I never look back and think, oh, I wish I drank more. If anything, drinking as much as I did in my 20s and 30s is one of my biggest regrets.
So I highly recommend people get off the sauce.

Speaker 1 The earlier, the better. Thank you, Jessica, for distilling this wisdom and officially ruining any hope all of us had of an actual hangover cure.
And yeah, maybe we should all just stop drinking.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'll drink to that. Cheers.

Speaker 1 Thank you all for listening. Topic suggestions and feedback direct to me, jordan at jordanharbinger.com.
Show notes on the website. Advertisers, deals, discounts, and ways to support the show.

Speaker 1 All at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. I'm also at JordanHarbinger on Twitter and Instagram.
You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. You can find Jessica on her multiple sub stacks.

Speaker 1 One is Between the Lions and the other one is Where Shadows Linger, which sounds pretty ominous. We'll link to both of those in the show notes.
This show is created in association with Podcast One.

Speaker 1 My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own, and I might be a lawyer, but I am not your lawyer.

Speaker 1 So do your own research before implementing things that you hear on the show. And remember, we rise by lifting others.
Share the show with those you love.

Speaker 1 If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use a good dose of the skepticism and knowledge that we doled out today.

Speaker 1 Maybe somebody who thinks they got a hangover cure. They might need to hear this one.
In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn.

Speaker 1 And we'll see you next time.

Speaker 1 You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger Show about how hormonal birth control can affect a woman's personality and even influence who they pick as a partner.

Speaker 4 Hormones affect the way that our brain does its daily business, and that includes things like attraction.

Speaker 4 You know, there's a lot of research that shows that for both men and women, it's like the cues that we tend to find as sexy and beautiful in women are cues that are related to estrogen presence and fertility.

Speaker 4 Our sex hormones are part of what creates the experience of being who we are. And all of it is helping to guide our behavior in ways that are actually really adaptive and functional.

Speaker 4 Estrogen loves testosterone. And that's, you know, just kind of the way that it is.
How does taking the pill change women's sexual psychology? And how does that change their sexual behavior?

Speaker 4 And I also think that there is a tendency to trivialize the types of side effects that we have from the pill.

Speaker 4 Because when you look at some of the most frequently occurring side effects, it's things like depression, like a complete absence of sex drive.

Speaker 4 I mean, it can really change behavior in ways that can not always be necessarily what we want. They're not one size fits all and everybody's going to respond a little bit differently.

Speaker 4 And so it's just important that you know that these things are possible so you know what to look out for them. There is nothing that will derail a person's life more than an unplanned pregnancy.

Speaker 4 And this is particularly true in our current environment where women aren't able to get safe legal abortions in many states.

Speaker 4 I am for you having all the information that you need to be able to make the decision that's right for you, because what is the right decision for you might not be the same decision that's right for me.

Speaker 1 To hear more from Dr. Sarah Hill about the problems with taking birth control, check out episode 280 of the Jordan Harbinger Show.

Speaker 1 This episode is sponsored in part by Everything Everywhere Daily. You've heard the phrase, learn something new every day.
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Speaker 1 This episode is sponsored in part by Conspirituality Podcast. You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation?

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Speaker 1 Find Conspirituality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.

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