What is a hangover?
Hangover is the feeling that comes over you after a night of partying. Nausea, tiredness and, above all, a guilty conscience because you have been over the top are part of it.
A hangover is more than a hangover
- In German, the hangover is called "Kater". But there is almost more to it than the usual symptoms after excessive alcohol consumption. While a simple hangover can also occur after a comparatively civil party, the hangover usually follows a feast in which alcohol consumption has blown all limits.
- In addition to the physical symptoms, a hangover sufferer usually has to come to terms with a bad conscience or a lack of memory.
- If you make decisions under the influence of alcohol in the evening that you would never have made sober, the next day, at best, it will just be embarrassing. Often enough, however, decisions are made that can have serious consequences.
- Often memory lapses occur due to excessive alcohol consumption. During the hangover you have to try to reconstruct the evening. Comments from friends or photos can then close the memory gaps in a very uncomfortable way.
Medical causes of the effects
- Alcohol also works in the body fat dissolving. This causes the protective fat layers of some nerve cells in the brain to be destroyed. A direct reaction to this injury is the release of dopamine, which has an analgesic and euphoric effect. The slight intoxication begins.
- However, if you continue to drink, the dopamine receptor is switched off. The alcohol no longer makes you happy, it can even lead to downright depression. Aggressive behavior is based on the reduction in the release of serotonin.
- Alcohol also has an effect on GABA functions. These are crucial for the body's motor functions. Balance disorders and uncoordinated movements under the influence of alcohol are based on this effect.
- Finally, the impairment of the glutamate receptors also disrupts the memory function. New memories no longer find their way into long-term memory. This blackout is usually noticed at the earliest when the alcohol level has dropped slightly again.
- Some of the alcohol is excreted unchanged. However, around 80% has to be broken down in the liver. In this degradation process, the toxic acetaldehyde has to be produced as an intermediate stage. If too much alcohol has been consumed, this breakdown product leads to strong headache and nausea.
- In addition to ethanol, alcoholic beverages produced improperly also contain large amounts of methanol. This is broken down into formaldehyde and formic acid. In smaller amounts, it causes severe headaches and can even lead to blindness. Methanol is fatal even in smaller quantities than ethanol.
The list of unpleasant consequences of a long night of partying with lots of alcohol is long: ...
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