It’s a beautiful day late in the summer, and you’re enjoying a day by the pool. In a year with few opportunities to celebrate, you’re taking full advantage of this one, so you end up partaking in a few more adult beverages than you typically do. The next morning…is not pleasant. Your head is pounding, your body is aching, your stomach is turning, and you barely have the energy to roll out of bed. While most people blame this morning (if not day-long) misery on dehydration, the latest research suggests this isn’t actually the case.
So why do we feel this way after a bit too much to drink?
Surprisingly, recent research suggests that a hangover is actually quite a bit like a flu. When you get a flu, you experience a lot of familiar sounding symptoms; you’re nauseous, you’re exhausted, your head and body hurt for seemingly no reason…and none of that is actually being caused by the flu virus itself! Instead, the flu’s misery is actually caused by your immune system attempting to fight off the virus. Recent studies have shown that a hangover appears to function quite similarly.
You see, alcohol is a toxic substance; there’s a good reason we use it in things like hand sanitizer! Alcohol you’ve consumed also gets into your bloodstream quite easily, letting it spread throughout your body. Your immune system, seeing something attacking all over your body (and not knowing it’s just you enjoying a few adult beverages), leaps to the defense, causing an inflammatory response everywhere the alcohol has gone…which is to say, everywhere in your body.
And as recent clinical studies have shown, the bigger the immune response mounted by your body, the worse you feel come morning.
Dr. Joris Verster is the world’s leading researcher on hangovers. He has been digging into the science behind them for nearly 20 years, and founded the Alcohol Hangover Research Group in 2010 to bring together the top scientists and the latest studies. And as Dr. Verster explains, “alcohol is toxic, so your body will fight against it with an inflammatory response; your immune system reacts to get rid of the alcohol, and this reaction is one of the underlying causes of a hangover”. But as Dr. Verster continues, it’s not just your immune system.
You see, when it comes to breaking down alcohol, genetics play a big role. As Dr. Verster explains, “there are different variants in genetics that determine how quickly you break down alcohol, so it can be slow, or intermediate, or fast, and this has a significant impact on hangover severity”. In fact, some studies have even suggested there may be a lucky fraction of people out there who process alcohol so efficiently that they are functionally immune to hangovers! Unfortunately, most of us aren’t so lucky…and some of us are in fact the total opposite, and get hangovers after only a couple of drinks.
But just because water, pickle juice, and greasy burgers don’t help doesn’t mean nothing can.
Based on the work of Dr. Verster and the AHRG, Toast! Before You Drink gummy bears are designed to support your health and support your body’s natural process of metabolizing alcohol. Our delicious blackberry gummies are packed with natural anti-inflammatory ingredients like milk thistle, green tea, and prickly pear, all of which clinical research has shown help to reduce the inflammation caused by alcohol. In fact, one study found prickly pear so potent that it helped reduce hangover severity by itself thanks to its anti-inflammatory powers! At the same time, Before You Drink gummies help provide your body with the materials it needs to break down alcohol, like zinc and niacin. The best part? They do all this in a delicious blackberry gummy that puts most candy gummy bears to shame.
Whether it’s Labor Day weekend or you’re just enjoying some Zoom cocktails with friends, you should be able to relax and enjoy “one more drink”. Get your first order of Before You Drink gummies $5 off with code “LAWeekly”!
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