It’s officially Christmas party season, and many people enjoying a few mulled wines or glasses of bubbly over the coming days… in some cases, a few too many.
While it’s always best to consume alcohol responsibly, this time of year will inevitably see partiers going over the limit and waking up with a nasty hangover.
As such, a doctor has shared a top tip that ‘they don’t tell you’, which could help reduce your risk of feeling rubbish the morning after.
Rather than changing what you drink, it’s all do with the food you consume beforehand – and there’s one thing in particular the expert recommends eating.
In a video shared to TikTok, @neenziiemd, a pulmonary and critical care doctor, claimed that eating cheese could help prevent a hangover.
She explained: ‘If you are going for a night out on the town and you are going to drink alcohol, eating cheese before drinking alcohol can decrease your risk of having a hangover.
‘This is because cheese has a lot of protein, fat, and complex carbs that can coat the stomach, which decreases the absorption of alcohol.
‘Cheese can help the body metabolise alcohol better and prevent liver damage. [It] also replenishes nutrients because it is full of Vitamin B and calcium, which are depleted from the body when drinking alcohol.’
The doctor went on to say that calcium is important as it helps the body improve nerve and muscle function, while Vitamin B is needed for energy and metabolism.
‘No alcohol is better than any alcohol,’ she added. ‘However if you are going to drink, try to remember to try some cheese before alcohol.’
If you forget to ‘pre-brie’ and end up worse for wear the next day though, it may be best to avoid tucking into a bacon sarnie or Maccie’s breakfast, and instead opt for some veggies.
Nutritional therapist, Cara Shaw, told Metro that the ideal hangover breakfast features three eggs, half a cup of sautéed mushrooms in olive oil, half an avocado, a sprinkle of feta, a handful of cooked tomatoes, and a drizzle of olive oil.
‘When it comes to the liver, the alcohol will be putting a lot of pressure on the liver so detoxification will need additional support,’ she explained. ‘You can get this from adequate protein but also B vitamins and antioxidants.’
Cara also recommends a cup of Matcha to wash it all down with, adding: ‘Matcha is much lower in caffeine than coffee and is absolutely packed with antioxidants to give the body a boost.
‘My top tip is to have your caffeinated drink after a meal to ensure it doesn’t spike your cortisol levels, even more important when hungover.’
How much alcohol is too much?
Cheese can only take you so far, and it’s still important to be cautious about how much booze you consume.
In terms of when your big night out becomes a big problem, one study recently revealed how much booze you have to drink to irreversibly damage your liver.
The research, by UC San Fransisco, found that 21 binge drinking sessions, over seven weeks (three a week), is enough to cause symptoms of early-stage liver failure. This would equate to men drinking 12 pints of beer a week for seven weeks, and women consuming nine pints a week for seven weeks.
But even more worryingly, experts claim that ‘even relatively limited’ binge drinking can lead to disruptions in liver function, and ‘could potentially result in more severe forms of liver damage’.
Binge drinking is defined as ‘drinking heavily over a short space of time’, and, for men, this means drinking more than eight units of alcohol in a single session. For women, it’s anything more than six units in a single session.
This is the equivalent of a man having four pints of ‘regular’ beer or three glasses of wine, or three pints/two 250ml glasses of wine for a woman.
The NHS advises men and women not to drink more than 14 units of alcohol a week on a regular basis. If you are drinking 14 units, these should be spread over three or more days, with several drink-free days interspersed. 14 units is equivalent to six pints of average-strength beer or 10 small glasses of lower-strength wine.
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