Suffering from having had a little too much last night? Here’s how to get straight back on fighting form by the GTG team
“Let’s face it,” says Dr Leonard Grossman, “we all want to look better and feel better by doing nothing!”
This explains why Dr Grossman, a cosmetic surgeon, developed a patch back in 2012 – the Bytox patch – that aims to prevent hangovers. By slowly releasing complex B vitamins, Dr Grossman believes that the patches counteract the effects of drinking while you're doing it.
Which sounds pretty good, unless you’re worried that Bytox makes binge-drinking seem safe, or you’re a regulatory body that finds it to be an unlicensed medical product …
All things considered, the Get The Gloss team are sticking to our tried and tested favourite cures. Some are based on science, some on instinct and experience. But whether you’re an organised night-before girl or tend to get it together only after a long chat with God down the big white telephone the next day, we’ve got a remedy for you.
The night before
1. Eat something
Ideally before you go out, but even a bar snack will do as long as there is a little fat in it – this slows the release of alcohol from the stomach into the intestines, which means you don’t get drunk so quickly or feel so bad when your blood sugar crashes the next day. “You can also consume a few tablespoons of olive oil to avoid a hangover. This will help to line the stomach so that less alcohol gets into the body,” say the folk at www.hangovercure.org .
2. Drink lighter-coloured drinks
“Congeners are natural organic chemicals that give a drink its distinctive taste, colour and smell. They make drinks interesting, but when taken in excess they contribute to a hangover,” explains Dr Andrew Irving in How to Cure a Hangover – a great, great book. “The paler the drink, the less likely it is to carry a knockout load of congeners. Vodka and gin are less likely to produce a hangover than whisky or brandy. Red wines result in a worse hangover than white.” (Unless it’s very cheap wine, he continues: nasty white may contain evil sulphur dioxide, so stick to the nasty red.)
3. Drink a pint of water before bed
A lot of the suffering in a hangover is because the alcohol has sent our body into a dehydrated state by sending our kidneys into overdrive to help deal with the alcohol. A pint of water before bed ensures you wake up in a much less dehydrated state and can avoid symptoms like headaches and nausea.
4. Alka-Seltzer before bed
GTG’s editor-in-chief Sarah Vine is organised about her plunk-plunk fizz. “Although my dad always has beer the next day, and that works for him.”
5. Milk thistle tablets
“Before, immediately after, next morning - always, in fact. Plus Boots fizzy vitamin B & C with a sachet of Spatone liquid iron in it,” says Hannah Betts . But this self-confessed drinker is far from perfect. “I always crave orange, MSG-ridden ‘Chinese’ food too.”
The morning after
6. A herbal tea
Yes, really. The hot water plus the right ingredients will help to cleanse away all those sins from the night before - find out which herbal teas we really rate on hungover days here.
7. A pint (or ten) of squash
GTG’s digital editor Judy Johnson is on to something with this – you’re dehydrated and maybe even hypoglycaemic the next day, so replacing sugar and fluid quickly will give you a boost.
8. Scrambled eggs on toast
“Choose your breakfast wisely; because your liver is too busy trying to metabolise alcohol to produce glucose, your blood sugar levels are low,” says James Osborn. The idea is that the mixture of carbs and protein (choose brown bread for extra points) will get your energy back up and keep it there.
9. Marmite on toast
“Not that I EVER get myself into that sort of state. Ahem...” asserts GTG’s demure editor-at-large, Susannah Taylor .
10. Black coffee and bikram yoga
“You do the crime, you pay the time,” says tough girl Imogen Edwards-Jones .
11. Milk thistle, 1,000mg of vitamin C and coconut water
“For all the electrolyte depletion,” says Ahmed Zambarakji, aka The Exfoliator. “Works every time.”
12. A packet of Quavers and Lucozade.
“Quavers can be substituted with bacon Wheat Crunchies in an emergency,” says drinker-on-a-budget Hannah Rochell . Replacing lost salt will help the fluid in the Lucozade to absorb better.
The afternoon after
13. Ice lollies
A hardcore option for the time of year, but designer Sarah McGinnis swears by it. Maybe it’s the sugar?
14. McDonald’s
Hard to believe from looking at her, but that’s what Ayesha Muttucumaru says she eats. A sort of homeopathic method… fight toxins with more toxins.
15. Square Pie
Any stodgy carbs will do, but for my personal money, this pie, mash and mushy pea combo is perfect, because even the smell of breakfast can send me running, green-faced, back upstairs to "relive" last night's cocktails. It has protein, fat, complex carbs (they leave a bit of potato skin in the mash) and will sort you out however much nasty white wine you had the night before. But why do you think I’m a Size 13 ?