Everybody has experienced the “morning after the night before” feeling when “only a few drinks” suddenly turned into much more than you had anticipated, leading to overeating.
Your mouth feels like some undiscovered area of the Sahara desert, as does your pounding headache, uneasy stomach, and sore throat. Greetings from your hangover!
What creates a hangover has an apparent solution, heavy drinking the previous evening.
Putting aside the harsh responses, why do you feel so awful after drinking too much?
Alcohol is a diuretic, which means that it eliminates water from your body before it can be absorbed.
Despite how much you drank the night before, dehydration is paradoxically one of the main causes of a hangover.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
✅ Although milk thistle may shield your liver from some of the negative effects of alcohol, there is no evidence that it can alleviate or prevent hangover symptoms.
✅ As a result, even though it’s generally safe, you shouldn’t think of it as a panacea.
✅ The greatest prevention method is to pace your drinking and keep your overall alcohol consumption to a minimum rather than relying on a chemical to cure hangovers.
Alcohol is a stomach irritant in addition to being the major component of many drinks. This is why the majority of people experience nausea and an upset stomach the morning after a night out on the town. Additionally, it depletes your body of vitamins and minerals and impairs the quality of your sleep.
Unfortunately, compared to their male counterparts, women’s bodies have fewer enzymes that help the body break down alcohol. As a result, you have a considerably higher chance of getting a hangover.
Additionally, scientists just confirmed what we’ve all believed for years: hangovers get worse as you age. This explains why you are unable to recuperate from a big night out as quickly as you could when you were a student.
Remedies for a hangover
Unfortunately, despite significant advancements in a number of fields, science has not yet discovered a way to treat a hangover. There is no such thing as a free drinking session, just like there are no free lunches.
We do have a few recommendations that will help you feel less pain and suffering, as well as one last foolproof option for preventing a hangover.
Eating is not Cheating
Making sure you eat before drinking alcohol will assist to delay the impact of alcohol on your system, but this is more of a preventative measure than a treatment. When you consume alcohol on an empty stomach, your body will absorb it much more quickly and you will experience the effects more quickly as well.
Drink water in the evening and just before bed.
Drinking different beverages is another effective protective approach. Alternating between alcoholic beverages and soft drinks will help you consume less alcohol, maybe consume fewer calories, and rehydrate your body.
And while we’re talking about hydration, making sure you drink water before going to bed will help you stay hydrated through the night and minimize the symptoms of dehydration.
Natures Remedy?
Due to its long history of use as a liver protector, milk thistle is a well-known herbal cure for a hangover. Do we, therefore, mean to imply that hangover remedies exist? So you can take Milk Thistle tablets before and after your night out. It is worth trying as a hangover supplement even though it cannot cure a hangover but may lessen your symptoms.
The effects of milk thistle on the body
Toxic byproducts are produced when alcohol is broken down by the body. They inflame your entire body, particularly your liver, stomach, and brain. Your liver becomes permanently scarred as a result of this inflammation, which may cause cirrhosis.
According to studies, silymarin may protect your liver by detoxifying some of the toxic substances in alcohol. Additionally, it functions as an antioxidant, scavenging dangerous free radicals generated by the body’s metabolism of alcohol.
Furthermore, silymarin might stop the inflammatory signals that alcohol activates.
Milk thistle is frequently used as adjunctive therapy for several liver disorders, despite the lack of conclusive evidence from human studies. It could aid in reducing or reversing liver damage brought on by cirrhosis, hepatitis, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and alcoholic liver disease.
Despite its possible advantages, milk thistle shouldn’t really be used as a hangover cure.
Do you want to test it?
If you have a hangover, it’s unlikely that milk thistle would help you feel any better.
Silymarin contains anti-inflammatory components that may lessen symptoms brought on by inflammation, such as body aches, but they won’t assist with dehydration-related headaches, dry mouth, or exhaustion from interrupted sleep.
As a result, choosing an alternative treatment is preferable.
Safety and dosage
Studies have shown that taking milk thistle orally is generally safe and well tolerated.
An upset stomach, nausea, diarrhea, and allergic responses are the most frequent adverse effects. Before taking it, or any supplement, you should consult your doctor to rule out any potential drug interactions or underlying health issues.
Due to limited safety data, you should avoid milk thistle if you are pregnant or have an allergy to plants in the Asteraceae or Compositae families, which includes ragweed. Use blood sugar medications since milk thistle may cause your blood sugar to fall dangerously low.
If you want to try milk thistle, keep in mind that different brands’ doses and the amount of active ingredient in each product may differ. Ensure that it is standardized to contain between 70 and 80 percent silymarin, and take it as directed.
In light of the fact that the Food and Drug Administration does not monitor supplements in the same manner that it controls medications, look for supplements whose safety and composition have been independently validated by a lab