Since people first started drinking alcohol, the search has been on for a way to go heavy on the pour but light on the hangover. But, two drinking surveys suggest that search is probably futile.
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One poll, conducted in Canada, concluded that if you drink to excess, you're going to have a hangover.
A second poll, conducted in the Netherlands, suggested that chasing your liquid poison with food or water ultimately does little to improve the hangover experience.
Nearly 800 Canadian students were asked to subjectively discuss their single heaviest drinking experience during the previous month. Specifically, the students were asked to note the amount of alcohol consumed and total time spent drinking. All were also asked to indicate if they'd had a hangover, and, if so, to describe its severity.
While just over 30 percent said they didn't have a hangover, only about 10 percent of those individuals actually had an estimated blood-alcohol concentration (BAC) that exceeded 0.08 percent, the study said. A BAC of 0.08 percent is the point at which American drivers are considered legally impaired, according to the U.S. Governors Highway Safety Association.
What's more, nearly 80 percent of the supposedly "hangover-free" group registered an estimated BAC below 0.10 percent, while just 2 percent had a BAC of 0.20 percent or more, the study found.
Among the top-drinking group, almost nobody claimed to be hangover-free. And the investigators concluded that it was highly unlikely that any heavy drinker had truly managed to elude the consequences that come with pounding back one too many.
The second survey focused on 825 Dutch students who offered details concerning their latest bout of big drinking and the hangover that followed.
Drink totals were tallied, and investigators noted whether food and/or water was also consumed either right after drinking (before bedtime) or the following morning once a hangover was already underway.
While nearly 55 percent said they had some food before bed, there was no clinical difference seen in the way such drinkers rated the severity of their subsequent hangover when compared with those who didn't eat immediately after drinking.
Similarly, the nearly 45 percent who said they downed a big breakfast the next day (and the 34 percent who consumed a lot of fatty foods) also saw little reduction in their hangover severity, the survey revealed.
Drinking water while consuming alcohol, or the following morning, also provided merely "modest" hangover relief, the study team found. And they concluded that food and water had no "relevant effect" on hangovers. ■