prayer in the morning church

May 30, 2006 6:21 AM

Hungover this morning? Here's why.
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket (13 comments total)

And here I thought it was because I drank too much...

Silly acetaldehydes.
posted by rand at 7:00 AM on May 30, 2006

...leading sufferers...

I consider myself a leading sufferer in this department.
posted by hellbient at 7:30 AM on May 30, 2006

The problem many East Asians have in drinking alcohol is that their livers have a mutant form of the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase-2 (ALDH2), which in other people eliminates the acetaldehyde formed by ethanol metabolism, but often fails to do its job properly in East Asians, which means they suffer worse hangovers as this toxic compound stays in their system at higher concentrations than it would otherwise do so.

So what this article is saying is that East Asians are genetically inferior drinkers. Or cheap dates.
posted by three blind mice at 7:33 AM on May 30, 2006

From the Wikipedia article:

Flushing, after consuming one or two alcoholic beverages, includes a range of symptoms: dizziness, nausea, headaches, an increased pulse, occasional extreme drowsiness, and occasional skin swelling and itchiness. These unpleasant side effects often prevent further drinking that may lead to further inebriation...

It's not the dizziness, nausea, headaches, increased pulse, occasional extreme drowsiness, or occasional skin swelling and itchiness that discourages further drinking, it's having to repeatedly explain why your face turned red after the first beer that discourages further drinking.
posted by cobra libre at 7:41 AM on May 30, 2006

This is a badly written article—we already knew that alcohol decomposes to acetaldehyde and that it's in general pretty bad to have aldehyes in your body. Sucks the fun right out of you.

The interesting part is the fact that it really does seem to be genetic, and they've found a strong correlation between a very specific gene and hangovers. Soon we can engineer that right out of you!
posted by blacklite at 7:48 AM on May 30, 2006

three blind mice, I like your interpretation better, I just kept thinking "Asians are mutants, Asians are mutants" and then I got jealous because mutants are like Teh Kewl these days.

And I'm not hungover today, just hung. Though I guess when I took my morning constitutional, I was hanging over the bowl so maybe I am hungover today but I didn't have any alkiehol last night.
posted by fenriq at 9:30 AM on May 30, 2006

sounds like you're pretty well hung then, fenriq.
posted by hellbient at 9:40 AM on May 30, 2006

I saw a lot of this when I lived in Japan. 2 beers and they're plastered. It certainly does make the night far less expensive, though, and your Japanese co-workers are happy as clams.

Japan is a great country to go drinking in. I don't know how it is now, but back then you could buy a 3 litre (yes, 3 litre) jug of Asahi beer out of a vending machine. Dude, instant party!

With this research, the cure for the modern hangover may be just around the corner. Forget cancer, damn it, we need to eliminate hangovers! Think of how much work is missed on the Monday after the Super Bowl. This could save businesses BILLIONS (* figure pulled out of my ass, but is probably close to what corporate America claims they lose on a day like that.) of dollars a year. I'm all for it.
posted by drstein at 9:53 AM on May 30, 2006

drstein : "I don't know how it is now, but back then you could buy a 3 litre (yes, 3 litre) jug of Asahi beer out of a vending machine. Dude, instant party!"

You still can. A little hard to find in the cities (500 ml and 700 ml cans are far more common), but the big vending machine 3 liter supercans are still available if you look enough. And having beer vending machines near public parks is always a plus.
posted by Bugbread at 10:53 AM on May 30, 2006

It's not the dizziness, nausea, headaches, increased pulse, occasional extreme drowsiness, or occasional skin swelling and itchiness

Funny, that's a partial list of the side effects they cheerily breeze through for most pharmaceutical ads. Makes being hung over sound positively healthy.
posted by slatternus at 11:32 AM on May 30, 2006

slatternus : "Funny, that's a partial list of the side effects they cheerily breeze through for most pharmaceutical ads."

That's because the secret ingredient in most modern pharmaceuticals is Gin.
posted by Bugbread at 11:39 AM on May 30, 2006

Whoa, hang on now -- I need my hangovers. Strange as that sounds, I'd be a total alcoholic without them. They're the punishment that says, "Don't DO that!!"

I'll never drink again.

at least not for another 3 days
posted by LordSludge at 12:39 PM on May 30, 2006

This has been known for decades. For example see Pearson and Shaw, Life Extension (1982) for a complete rundown.
posted by telstar at 10:42 PM on May 30, 2006