Hangovers have been the bane of our existence for years and now, thanks to someone way smarter than us, we may FINALLY know what causes this scourge.
According to Science journalist Adam Rogers, the author of Proof: The Science of Booze…
[Scientists] finally have a survey instrument that they can give somebody and assess, “You have a Level 9 hangover, and you have a Level 7 hangover,” and they finally started to see that overlap with both migraine and also an inflammatory response, so the kind of thing you would have if you had the flu — where you feel achy and you feel slow and your brain doesn’t work as fast and [you have] general malaise. Looking at that, they can go, “K, let’s see if in fact this is an inflammation.”
If you look at people with hangovers, the same markers in the blood that you would see with an inflammatory response, things like cytokines, for example — which are molecule[s] that the immune [system] uses to talk to itself — actually do seem elevated, and even better, you can induce what looks like a hangover by giving somebody those same molecules. … That’s good news because if you say, “Well, it’s an inflammatory response,” then maybe I can go with anti-inflammatory drugs, and we have those.
So, wait a second…the cure for a hangover is anti-inflammatory drugs? Like ibuprofen or acetaminophen? Dammit, I knew that. I’m a scientist!
H/T io9
Hangover guy image by Shutterstock