How to avoid the Christmas hangover

By Carolyn Owlett  on Monday 21 December 2009

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Wouldn't it be fantastic to find the ultimate hangover cure this festive season? It seems you don't need to give up the drink altogether, just pick the right tipple.

All alcoholic beverages are variations of the chemical ethanol and the liver and brain deal with it the same way, regardless of whether you're quaffing Champagne or downing beer.

Choosing the right drink will change how fast alcohol affects you, and how you feel the morning after.

In a study carried out by the British Medical Association, vodka was found to be the least likely alcoholic drink to leave you feeling worse for wear.

The reason behind this is that vodka contains hardly any ‘congeners', which are impurities normally formed during fermentation. These play a big part in how bad your hangover is.

Whisky contains lots of congeners, which tend to form during the ageing process in oak casks. As a result, Bourbon Whiskey is twice as likely to cause a hangover as the same amount of vodka.

Of course it is risky to drink any alcohol to excess - under official government guidelines, men are supposed to have no more than three to four units a day, women two to three units.

Professor Wayne Jones, a leading expert on alcohol toxicology at the University of Health Sciences in Linkping, Sweden, warns, ‘If you drink any type of alcohol on an empty stomach, the rate of absorption is sometimes so fast that it compares with getting it intravenously.'

Which drink tends to leave you feeling worse for wear? Please leave your comments below.

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Monday 21 December 2009

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