Does the order in which you consume drinks matter?

According to Kai O. Hensel, a researcher at Helios University Wuppertal in Germany, there hasn't been much research looking into the truth of those drinking sayings partly because research is expensive, challenging, and time-consuming.

However, in a study published in 2019, Hensel and colleagues looked at whether the order in which people consume alcoholic drinks had any effect on them.

The researchers recruited 90 students from a German university between the ages of 19 and 40 and split them up into three groups. The first group drank a 5% alcohol Pilsner beer on the first day until their breath alcohol concentration hit 0.05%. Then, they drank an 11% alcohol white wine until their breath alcohol concentration hit 0.11%.

The second group did the same thing but started with the white wine and then drank the Pilsner. A third group were told to only drink either beer or wine as a control.

As the participants drank, they were asked about their well-being and how drunk they felt. They were also provided with standardized meals and water and slept at the study site.

The next morning, the participants were asked to rate the intensities of their hangover symptoms, including how tired, thirsty, dizzy, and nauseated they were, on a scale of 0 to 7.

Around a week later, the researchers repeated the same process but switched the alcohol drinking order between the groups, meaning those who originally drank beer first now drank wine first and vice versa. Those in the control group also switched drinks.

According to Hensel, when the researchers compared the hangover scores from the participants over the course of the study, they found that drinking order didn't uniformly affect hangover symptoms. They did not find an optimal sequence of drinks that applied to everybody, Hensel said, and the severity of a person's hangover depended on how their bodies were able to process alcohol.

"Our findings debunk the age-old myths," the researchers wrote.

Can you reduce your chance of a hangover?

According to Emmert Roberts, a senior clinical lecturer in addiction psychiatry at King's College London, the easiest way to reduce your chance of a hangover is to drink less.

There are some alcoholic beverages that are more likely than others to make you feel sick the next day, Roberts said. For example, darker liquors like whiskey and brandy have been linked to more intense hangovers than lighter-colored ones like vodka and gin. This is because darker liquors have higher concentrations of congeners, which are compounds produced naturally during the distillation and fermentation process that contribute to the colors, flavors, and aromas of a drink.

Red wine has also been found to cause headaches the next day for reasons that are not yet fully understood.

While there aren't any proven ways to prevent hangovers, staying hydrated can help, according to Sarah Andrews, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins Medicine. Alternating your alcoholic drinks with water can also slow down how quickly you're drinking, which can help you drink less. It's also helpful to ensure you have food in your stomach before drinking, since you can get more intoxicated if you drink on an empty stomach.

But if the only way you try to dodge a hangover is following the instructions of an old saying, it's not going to work, Andrews says.

"There's so many myths about alcohol use that need to be debunked," she said. "And this is definitely one of them." (Blum, New York Times, 2/20)

Healthy microbes are essential for proper digestion, immune function, and intestinal health. And while there isn't a large body of research on how alcohol affects the gut, existing research suggests drinking may hurt the gut microbiome, Alice Callahan reports for the New York Times.