While we seem to know a lot about alcoholic beverages and their consumption, scientific research on hangovers is surprisingly limited. The current working theories offer only partial explanations or have been contradicted by research. So we don’t really know what causes hangovers, but we have some guesses. Let’s take a look at four popular theories that contribute to our hangover knowledge.
As you probably know, headaches and dry mouth are common hangover symptoms, and these probably stem from dehydration. Drinking alcohol makes you dehydrated because ethanol—alcohol in its purest form—is a diuretic: it makes you pee. However, there is no correlation between vasopressin (a hormone associated with dehydration) and the severity of a hangover. So there’s more to your hangover than just not having enough water in your system.
Another theory has to do with misallocated enzymes. When your body processes alcohol, the enzyme NAD+ transforms into an alternate form, NADH. Our bodies use NAD+ for metabolic functions, such as glucose absorption and electrolyte regulation. The more you drink, the less NAD+ your body has left over to perform these basic metabolic tasks. Pretty uncomfortable, right? But this theory has been contradicted by a study that found no correlation between lower electrolyte or glucose levels and more-severe hangovers. Maybe a lack of NAD+ isn’t the problem.
Some people think that certain types of alcohol cause worse hangovers than others. This may be true: the fermentation process produces a by-product called congeners, and our bodies don’t like them, since they contain chemicals that our bodies consider poisonous. Unfortunately, it’s these congeners that make everything from beer to brandy taste so dandy. We love these flavorful chemicals, even if the chemicals don’t love us!
The strongest theory at this time suggests that it’s not the alcohol that makes us feel hungover but rather what our bodies transform the alcohol into: acetaldehyde, a chemical that may be up to 30 times more toxic than alcohol. Some research has shown that our immune systems could be the reason acetaldehyde affects some of us worse than others, although this has yet to be proved.