Friday, March 02, 2007
HANGOVER
I have a hangover today. But it’s the good kind – the clarifying kind – no headache, just a pleasantly empty feeling in my head, like all my thoughts have been sucked out. Last night I went to a “Mum’s Night Out” hosted by the local chapter of a group called the National Childbirth Trust. Consider that name for a moment – this nation considers the birth of a child something worth investing in, something to gather riches for, something to promote on both a local and global scale. And therefore, it engages a group of its sagest citizens (women of all sorts who’ve had children themselves) to bolster the common good by developing and sharing resources with one another for successful birthing and parenting.
But back to the hangover. It’s particular flavor is humble house white, followed later by something sweeter – a desert wine? I think I had about 9 glasses. No kidding. Europeans are famous for their hospitality, and people just kept topping me up. Never one to leave a glass full for long, I knocked them back along with my tasty apple, walnut & goat cheese salad, my baked sea bream with caper mash, and my raspberry crème brulee. Yum, you say? Yum, indeed. I was drunk enough when I got home, that I had to go straight to bed, as the room was spinning a bit, and I couldn’t make my mouth move properly. I hadn’t meant to drink so much, but there you are. We so often do not do what we mean to do.
The first twinge came at 6:03am as I lifted my head from the pillow while attempting to coax a milk-bent Gman into my bed for a bit more shut-eye. A few minutes later in the kitchen, I noticed that when I turned my head, my eyes were a bit slow to follow. Then I dropped a part of the bottle and bent down to retrieve it. Ah, yes. The familiar head rush, the sense that all your vital organs have lost their moorings and are sloshing about inside your body, including your brain, which feels like a sneaker thumping around in an empty dryer. Hmmm. Why is this? I learned somewhere once about the chemical processes that are inspired by excess drink, and why they cause the distinctive hangover symptoms – headache, dizziness, upset stomach, and that feeling that your brain is knocking about in its pan without proper lubrication. Let’s see what wikipedia has to say on the subject…whoops, fingers misfired (more evidence of my hungover state) and I got Hanover instead (which turns out to be a German city nestled on the river Leine)…It seems amazing that we knew anything at all before the internet…ah, here we are…
Hangover (Causes)
Hangovers are multi-causal. Ethanol has a dehydrating effect (such substances are known as diuretics), which causes headaches, dry mouth, and lethargy. Dehydration causes the brain to shrink away from the skull slightly.[3] …Alcohol's impact on the stomach lining can account for nausea. Due to the increased NADH production during metabolism of ethanol by the enzymes alcohol dehydrogenase and aldehyde dehydrogenase, excess NADH can build up and slow down gluconeogenesis in the liver, thus causing hypoglycemia.
Another factor contributing to a hangover are the products from the breakdown of ethanol via liver enzymes. Ethanol is converted to acetaldehyde by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase, and then from acetaldehyde to acetic acid by the enzyme acetaldehyde dehydrogenase. Acetaldehyde (ethanal) is mildly toxic, contributing to the hangover. These two reactions also require the conversion of NAD+ to NADH. With an excess of NADH, the lactate dehydrogenase reaction is driven to produce lactate from pyruvate (the end product of glycolysis) in order to regenerate NAD+ and sustain life. This diverts pyruvate from other pathways such as gluconeogenesis, thereby impairing the ability of the liver to supply glucose to tissues, especially the brain. Because glucose is the primary energy source of the brain, this lack of glucose contributes to hangover symptoms such as fatigue, weakness, mood disturbances, and decreased attention and concentration.
OK, well, I got a little confused around “enzyme” and lost the plot entirely by “dehydrogenase”, but it’s good to know that there is a scientific reason why my brain feels funny. Yet, despite the toxicity and the tiredness, I still enjoy a good hangover now and then. We grip everything so tightly in this life. Sometimes swallowing a whole bottle of muscle relaxant is what’s needed to make us finally lose our grip long enough to look around and see how good everything is, and how maybe all the things we’re gripping aren’t really real anyway – not as real as the pale blue sky this morning with wispy white clouds, or my son’s face while we were making pancakes, his little tongue jutting out of his mouth in blissful concentration. Later on, when I looked at my own face in the mirror, I noticed all the lines had gone. It was smooth and pale and worry-free. The flip-side of a hangover’s “decreased attention and concentration” is an inability to remember your to-do list, or the bills you were fretting over, or any of the other petty tigers that have your mind by the tail on most days. I say Viva Vino (in moderate immoderation of course!) Just be sure to convalesce on a sofa where you can see the sky.
Be well.
