Understanding the Biological Causes Behind a Hangover

Waking up in the morning with a headache, dry mouth and feeling kind of queasy is the quintessential sign of a good night, or just a lot of drinks the night before.

Deep-Rooted by Perveen Kaur

It's something majority of us have experienced at some point during our drinking lives. But what actually causes these hangover symptoms in the body?

Ethanol

The ingredients of our alcoholic beverages these days vary but they mostly consist of water, carbohydrates, other flavourings and ethanol. Ethanol is primary molecule in alcohol that gives us that buzz but also causes a lot of other issues that are associated with drinking.

So the story of the hangover begins with ethanol. When we consume alcohol on a night out, we typically drink faster than the body can process it. The body has to break down the ethanol into other molecules so that it can get rid of it. Really it's a toxic and foreign substance so when we drink, the body mobilises its energy to break it down to get rid of it.

The liver does the heavy lifting of breaking down ethanol and it has a limitation on how much it can break down and how fast. And typically, we drink faster than this capacity. The breakdown happens in two stages and the first stage creates another molecule which unfortunately is even more toxic than ethanol. It is called acetaldehyde and this is the molecule that causes the major hangover symptoms.

The Cause of Hangover Symptoms

Acetaldehyde is a toxic molecule, more so than the ethanol itself. When this is circulating your system, it causes all kinds of damage to cells and DNA and results in headaches, nausea and other fun symptoms of discomfort.

The more you drink and the faster you drink, the more of this toxic chemical will be in your system. The liver can only break down so much in a certain amount of time. So while the liver is processing the first drink and you have a second, the ethanol in the second drink is now just circulating in the blood stream, waiting to be broken down. As the liver works to convert the first drink, the toxic molecule acetaldehyde is building up.

There is a second stage of breakdown that converts this toxic molecule into something safer and other processes which finally get rid of it completely. But it just takes time for the liver to do this. While it is doing this, more ethanol is pouring in with each additional drink and more acetaldehyde is building up before it gets converted to a safer molecule.

While acetaldehyde plays a big role in causing hangover symptoms, many other symptoms are cause by the ethanol itself. Ethanol disrupts the balance of the body and brain chemistry quite a lot, causing ripple effects that lead to the classic hangover of dehydration, feeling queasy, feeling tired, and possibly emotionally quite low.

Safe Amounts of Alcohol?

There isn't really a safe amount of alcohol to consume, nor is there a certain amount of alcohol that you can consume which won't trigger the imbalance in the body and the subsequent consequences. There are recommended upper limits that have been set by the government. But really, because of the toxicity of ethanol itself and the the acetaldehyde that is created within the body itself, there isn't a safe amount to consume.

New to the market are zero alcohol versions of drinks. They are a nice alternative to having an alcoholic drink. Some are made completely without alcohol and just utilise flavours to bring out the taste of the acholic counterparts. However normal wine for example can be made low or virtually zero alcohol by stripping the alcohol from the wine while still leaving the flavour profiles.

If you drink on a regular basis, the recommendations are to pace the alcohol you consume and have days off. This is so your body isn't overloaded with these toxic chemicals and it prevents huge spikes in acetaldehyde that comes with binge drinking.

Evolutionary Ethanol

Ethanol is actually part of our ancestral diet even though it is a toxic substance. Our ancestors were exposed to low levels of ethanol through consuming ripe fruit and other sweet sources like nectar. But it is argued that these very low levels do not cause harm to the body because it can be broken down quicker than consumed.

Natural concentrations are very low though and it would be difficult to have a glass of wine or any kind of alcoholic drink today that resembles those low amounts. Any drink we have typically contains more ethanol than in nature and we just consume more quantity than we would eat.

Unfortunately, hangovers are part of the package of drinking the potent beverages we create today and enjoying the social aspects, taste and light headedness of drinking.