NOTE: I'm still researching. I will post out what
I find out soon.
Congeners
Congeners are toxic chemicals that are
formed during fermentation, some liquors have more of them
than others. These congeners are widely responsible for
headaches. Simple digest : The clearer your drinks, the
less problems you will have the next morning. (correct
only for brandys. non filtered beer for example can be
very good, specially because they contain a large vitamin
b complex, which is important to protect you from brain
pickling )
For instance:
* Vodka has less congeners than gin.
* Most scotch whiskey has about four times more congeners
than gin
* Brandy, rum and single-malt scotch have about six times
more than gin
* Bourbon drinkers ingest eight times the amount of
congeners as do gin drinkers, and 30 times as much as
vodka.
* Red wine has more congeners than white wine does.
What causes hangovers?
Dehydration
Alcohol is a diuretic, ie a drug that increases
urination and flushes fluids from the body. Drinking
coffee the next morning only increases this problem as
coffee is also a diuretic.
Mild poisons in the drink
Complex organic molecules such as methanol and acetone
are found in some drinks and are said to be responsible
for hangovers rather than ethanol (alcohol). This view
is by researcher Dr Ian Calder of the London based
National Hospital for Neurosurgey.
Which Alcohol is worse?
Brandy is worst for hangovers then in descending order
are: red wine, rum, whisky, white wine, gin and vodka.
The British Medical Journal did tests that showed
drinking bourbon whiskey is twice as likely to cause a
hangover than the same amount of vodka.
Too much alcohol
Too much alcohol depletes the body of necessary
substances required to stay healthy, these include blood
sugar, vitamins and minerals.
Wine - a bad harvest
If you are drinking wine that comes from a country where
a small change in the climate can make a big difference
to the quality of wine, eg France, Germany, New Zealand,
then in a bad season the wine contains many more
substances that cause hangovers.
Wine - drinking it too young
Almost all red wines and chardonnay are matured in oak
barrels so that they will keep and improve. If you drink
this wine younger than three years there will be a
higher level of nasties that can cause hangovers. If
left to mature these nasties change to neutral
substances and don't cause hangovers. As a rule of thumb
wine stored in oak barrels for six months should be
acceptable to drink within the first year. If the wine
is stored for twelve months or more in oak barrels it
should then be left for at least four years. Some
winemakers have been known to add oak chips directly
into the wine to enhance flavors, especially in a bad
season, and this can take years to become neutral.
Safety Tip!!
One thing you REALLY
ought to be aware of --- if you plan on living very long
-- is that acetominophen (Tylenol) in combination with
alcohol does HORRENDOUS liver damage. Alcohol alone
damages the liver; and acetominophen (Tylenol) does a
little damage to the liver; but if you mix the two, the
damage you incur is EXPONENTIAL. I'm sure you can find
plenty of medical journals to
corroborate this if you
want to. This made news a while back. You can literally
wreck your liver in a very short time if you mix Tylenol
with alcohol.
Alcohol intake linked to better
cognitive function sent by Frank Kunkel
Light alcohol consumption may improve intellectual ability
on everyday function, a new study of the Indiana
University School of Medicine in Indianapolis suggests. In
the study of 2,040 African-Americans with an average age
of 74 years, researchers found that light drinkers--
people who had fewer than four alcoholic drinks per week--
exhibited slightly higher scores on cognitive examinations
(mean score of 30.93) than those who had 10 or more drinks
each week (mean score of 29.93). People who never drank or
only drank moderately-- more than four but fewer than 10
drinks each week-- had test results that were slightly
lower or equal to the light drinkers (means scores of
30.18 and 30.42, respectively), the researchers said.
Although scores for light drinkers were only marginally
higher, they were consistent, Dr. Hendrie noted in the
October issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics
Society (1996;44:1158-1165).
Among the participants, 59% had been drinkers at some time
in their lives and 25% were still drinking at the time of
the study. The other 41% were lifetime abstainers. In the
report, these lifetime abstainers tended to score more
poorly of cognitive functions than the light drinkers,
even when the light drinkers had stopped drinking almost
20 years prior to the study, Dr. Hendrie said. "If you
take this report in the context of what we know of alcohol
in general, it is a good report and provides extra
precaution to those who are heavy drinkers," Dr. Evans
said.
"Probably the best group to be in is that group that
drinks a little bit," he added.
Old wives tales- Malarkey or not?
"A hair of the dog that bit you."
This remedy calls for having a drink the next morning for relief of a hangover. It is recommended that you have whatever you were drinking the night before, although a bloody mary is a common substitute.
Malarkey? No. When you wake up after drinking, you're coming off the effects of a mild overdose of a depressant. Having a drink helps to ease the symptoms, and a bloody mary contains lots of vitamins your body desperately needs. Unfortunately, you are merely putting off the side effects temporarily.
"Don't mix you liquors." or "Beer before liquor, never sicker. Liquor before beer, never fear."
This pokey old rhyme portends of bad things to come if mixing booze or if beer is
consumed before liquor.
Malarkey? No. Mixing different types of alcohol makes it more difficult for your body to process congeners, because it your body has to identify and neutralize more varieties of congeners.
Carbonation speeds the absorption of alcohol, so drinking beer then liquor would cause the liquor to be absorbed at a faster rate than it would normally.
Plus, people tend to drink liquor faster than beer, which is more filling. So, switching to liquor from beer is likely to speed up your rate of liquor consumption after you're already halfway towards being in the bag.
So what is a propanol hangover?
