Picture the scene: a raveled man stumbles by the Forum, his wine-stained toga bundled haphazardly round his torso. At his ft, a smattering of empty amphorae lie strewn throughout the ground, their contents greedily imbibed by the convivium’s attendees. Saturnalia has been wild this yr, however the December festivities are drawing to a detailed and it’s time to go and lie down with a cabbage in your head.
Fast-forward a few millennia and we’re nonetheless partying our means by the darkness of mid-winter, although our inexperienced hangover cures now have a tendency to come back in smoothie kind. Personally, I’ve by no means had a lot aid from blended kale and ginger, so this yr I’m going old-school and making an attempt out a number of the historical world’s high cures for alcoholic regret.
The hair of the canine?
For all of the achievements of contemporary science, it’s considerably shocking that we nonetheless don’t actually perceive why consuming an excessive amount of offers us a hangover. And for those who can’t work out what causes one thing, then you definitely’re going to have a fairly troublesome time curing it.
Having stated that, we now have not less than made some progress because the historical Greeks and Romans, who attributed the after-effects of an evening on the sauce to imbalanced humors or an extra of blood. Over the previous decade and a half, a world group of scientists collectively generally known as the Alcohol Hangover Research Group has devoted itself to demystifying the dreaded katzenjammer, shedding some much-needed mild on the physiological mechanisms concerned.
Among the group’s collaborators is Dr Andrew Scholey from Swinburne University. Speaking to IFLScience, the Adjunct Professor of Human Psychopharmacology explains that “a hangover is outlined as a cluster of unfavorable well being results which happen as blood alcohol returns to zero. So it is normally when persons are hungover that you understand they’ve cleared the alcohol out of their physique.”
The supplies and strategies part of my first experiment lists mulled wine because the principal ingredient, with directions to drink like a royal visitor within the imperial hospitality field on the Colosseum.
Paradoxically, then, it appears we begin hanging as soon as our methods are utterly freed from booze, which is across the time you would possibly assume we’d begin feeling again to regular. Logic due to this fact tells us that for those who simply carry on consuming, your hangover ought to disappear.
According to Scholey, although, this “hair of the canine” strategy has been studied, and it seems that “all that occurs is, you delay the ache for slightly longer.” In different phrases, merely consuming extra just isn’t an efficient hangover treatment, which suggests I can cross that one off my checklist earlier than I even start my experiments.
Bottoms up
For this investigation, I’ve tried to copy the results of historical alcohol as a lot as potential. The Romans, as an example, sometimes drank mead or wine diluted with water and flavored with spices like pepper and cinnamon. The supplies and strategies part of my first experiment due to this fact lists mulled wine because the principal ingredient, with directions to drink like a royal visitor within the imperial hospitality field on the Colosseum.
I even wore a makeshift toga that I long-established from a bedsheet.
Like any well-prepared Greco-Roman boozehound, I made positive to put a cabbage on my pillow earlier than passing out (a lot to the dismay of my Twenty first-century spouse).
Now, about that cabbage. Supposedly, each the Greeks and the Romans believed that the cabbage and the vine had been pure enemies, and due to this fact enlisted the leafy vegetable’s assist when affected by the results of the earlier night’s revelry. It’s onerous to pinpoint the origin of this concept and evidently strategies for working a cabbage had been assorted, with some ingesting the crop uncooked or steamed whereas others utilized it topically by strapping it to their head.
As it occurs, cabbage is now identified to comprise excessive ranges of nutritional vitamins C and Ok, whereas assessments have indicated that it could even assist to protect the liver and kidneys from toxins. Like any well-prepared Greco-Roman boozehound, I due to this fact made positive to put a cabbage on my pillow earlier than passing out (a lot to the dismay of my Twenty first-century spouse).
Sadly, nonetheless, morning introduced with it a stinking headache that refused to half with me even after my steamed cabbage breakfast. Shifting this beast of a hangover was clearly going to require one thing slightly stronger, so I heeded the recommendation of a 2,000-year-old Egyptian scroll generally known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, which recommends sporting a garland of Alexandrian laurel round one’s neck.
Native to Asia and East Africa, the shrub isn’t too simple to come back by right here in London, though I did handle to supply a younger plant from a tree nursery earlier than beginning my experiment. Because the leaves on this immature specimen had been nonetheless small, I made a decision to easily sit with all the plant on my lap for a number of hours whereas I wallowed in distress. Sadly, nonetheless, this did nothing to assuage my ache or self-loathing.
Back to the bottle
Unfortunately, there are only a few surviving written sources documenting historical hangover cures, so it’s onerous to know precisely what sorts of antidotes had been deployed in occasions passed by. One Babylonian textual content, nonetheless, seems to checklist a rescue treatment containing licorice and oleander, amongst different components. Given that the latter is extremely toxic, nonetheless, I made a decision that even probably the most vicious hangover might be preferable to sampling this explicit concoction, which due to this fact didn’t make it into my experiment.
The legendary Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder, in the meantime, is alleged to have sworn by uncooked owl eggs and fried canaries. Neither of those cures seem in his well-known Historia Naturalis, nonetheless, so I gave myself permission to skip these choices too.
The solely different historical antidote for which there’s bodily proof is amethyst, which truly comes from the Greek phrase amethystos, which means “not drunk”. Archaeologists have even discovered ancient rings comprised of the quartz-like crystal, that are believed to have been worn with a purpose to defend individuals from hangovers and different undesirable unwanted side effects of consuming an excessive amount of.
The subsequent day was completely horrendous, and my temper actually wasn’t helped by the sight of all that silly amethyst sitting uselessly round my home like a bunch of sparkly purple jerks.
Unsurprisingly, there’s zero science to again this up, though the stone remains to be bought as a hangover treatment to overly credulous consumers. Rather than waste my very own cash, I borrowed some amethyst crystals from my mum and braced myself for a second bender (within the title of science) a number of days after my first hangover had subsided.
Unable to abdomen any extra mulled wine, nonetheless, I selected Scotch as my poison this time round. Unfortunately for me, research have proven that whisky tends to provide a worse hangover than different spirits like vodka, probably as a result of it’s aged in oak barrels that leach quite a lot of compounds generally known as congeners, lots of that are believed to contribute to hangover severity.
Sure sufficient, the following day was completely horrendous, and my temper actually wasn’t helped by the sight of all that silly amethyst sitting uselessly round my home like a bunch of sparkly purple jerks. I suppose these congeners received me (and, err, the alcohol in all probability didn’t assist both).
A contemporary resolution?
If there’s one factor these hungover Roman cabbage huggers – and my experiments – have taught us, it’s that you just shouldn’t consider the hype surrounding purported cures for extra. Yet that doesn’t cease us modernites from making an attempt to banish our boozy blues with all method of unscientific cures.
In collaboration with different researchers from the Alcohol Hangover Research Group, Scholey just lately co-authored a research analyzing 82 of the top products on Amazon claiming to alleviate hangovers. Shockingly, he says that “there was completely zero empirical proof for any of them,” which simply goes to point out that at this time’s drinkers are not any much less gullible than these historical inebriates.
While scientists are unlikely to develop a dependable treatment till they absolutely perceive what causes hangovers, hope could also be on the horizon, as a few promising avenues have already been recognized. For occasion, Scholey explains that “there are poisonous metabolites that are generated throughout alcohol elimination,” that are more likely to contribute considerably to the event of uncomfortable signs as we sober up.
The most fascinating of those is acetaldehyde, which is produced because the physique processes ethanol and is significantly extra poisonous than alcohol itself. “With a toxin like that, one factor that occurs is you get a cytokine response, which is a type of inflammatory response that normally happens after we encounter a virus or different overseas our bodies,” says Scholey.
“And you understand, there’s rising proof that within the section after alcohol elimination, when persons are affected by a hangover, the extent of those inflammatory markers will increase.” It due to this fact appears believable that therapies concentrating on irritation could have a job to play in assuaging hangovers, though we’re nonetheless ready for large-scale scientific trials to verify whether or not or not this actually is the case.
For what it’s price, research have additionally proven that consuming water doesn’t ease a hangover, though it does rectify the dehydration that sometimes accompanies a morning-after headache.
For now, then, the age-old seek for a treatment goes on, though as Scholey factors out, “there are all kinds of moral points about whether or not a hangover remedy is fascinating anyway.” After all, whereas such a treatment could also be developed with the intention of decreasing the harms related to alcohol, the truth is that “individuals would possibly use a product like that with a purpose to drink extra.”
And Zeus is aware of we do greater than sufficient of that as it’s.
The content material of this text just isn’t supposed to be an alternative to skilled medical recommendation or remedy. Always search the recommendation of certified well being suppliers.
This article first appeared in Issue 29 December 2024 of our digital journal CURIOUS. Subscribe and by no means miss a problem.
