Saturday, May 06, 2006

aarrrgh, my brain hurts.


It's a Saturday, so there is a fair chance that, like me, you are feeling a little delicate from excessive alcohol (in the form of ethanol) intake last night. I bet that you are not a mug and have gone to work though. I am, so I have. Rubbish.


Do you have a hangover remedy you always rely on? In my experience many people need eggs on the morning after, possibly accompanied with some salty pig flesh all covered in brown sauce and in a sandwich. Or you may prefer the "cleaning" effect of some fruit and cold porridge (muesli). You'll probably be wanting a nice cup of tea with that. And water. Lots of water. When I was an undergrad I used to swear by a BLT with chili sauce washed down with Oasis Citrus Punch, or in severe cases Lucazade Sport ("its gets to your thirst, fast"), whereas this morning I had a grilled halloumi cheese sandwich with garlic yoghurt sauce. But that's because I'm a bourgeois get.


Well it seems that all your remedies are no more affctive than the next one, accoring to not so new research published in the BMJ ages ago. Pittler et al conducted a review of 15 papers investigating various hang over cures, seven of which were rejected as they were non-randomised. Although they do list 20 cures they found ion google, including Marmite on toast (hmmmmmm), kidney dialysis (an option not availible to most I feel) and "russia party" (what the hell is this?), the cures included in the trial are all not things I've ever tried, borage for example. They did not include a grilled halloumi cheese sandwich.
Worringly for me, they highlight that more need to be understood of the pathology of the hangover. I'm sure that the average university has enough drunken idiots (I have no idea who these people are).

I have devised the perfect hangover cure, or atleast what i always want to be done to me when hungover: I want to take my brain out or my skull, and put it in a nice cool bowl of clean saline, swish it about about, then put it back in.... bliss.

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