Research into the order of alcohol consumption shows that despite the old saying, you’ll feel ropey the next day either way.
By Anna Bonet
You may be familiar with the old saying ‘beer before wine and you’ll feel fine; wine before beer and you’ll feel queer’, but new research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has found that there is no substance to this claim.
While the mantra exists in a variety of forms and languages across Europe, scientists who put it to the test concluded that a hangover will ensue and you will feel bad the next day regardless of the order your drinks are consumed. For the study, 90 participants were given the drinks in various orders:
🔹 One group drank around two-and-a-half pints of lager, followed by four large glasses of white wine.
🔹 Another had the same amounts of alcohol, but in reverse order.
🔹 A control group only had either beer or wine.
Following this, one week later the participants of groups one and two swapped their order, and the control group switched the drink they consumed. On both occasions, they were kept overnight under medical supervision and asked to rank the severity of their hangovers the following morning. Factors considered include nausea, vomiting, headache and fatigue.
The results clearly showed that the order in which participants consumed the wine and beer did not affect how they felt the next day. In both instances, they suffered from a bad hangover.
The results showed that the order in which they consumed beer and wine did not affect their hangover.
‘We didn’t find any truth in the idea that drinking beer before wine gives you a milder hangover than the other way around,’ said one of the study’s authors, Joran Kochling.
‘The only reliable way of predicting how miserable you’ll feel the next day is by how drunk you feel and whether you are sick,’ he went on to say. ‘We should all pay attention to these red flags when drinking.’
This means there’s no loophole to hangover-free drinking. If you drink in excess, you’re likely to suffer the next day either way.
What does alcohol do to the body?
It’s no secret that drinking excessive alcohol isn’t good for you. It can have a seriously negative effect on both physical and mental health.
Alcohol puts stress on your internal organs, affects your quality of sleep, and your skin.
Speaking to Netdoctor, Dr Thornber of Now Patient said ‘alcohol puts stress on your internal organs, affects your quality of sleep, your skin, your energy levels and can often cause anxiety.
‘It is also full of empty calories which can cause your waist line to expand!’ he adds. Excess weight can cause all sorts of health issues, from diabetes to heart disease.
Tips to avoid a hangover
The most effective way to avoid a hangover is to not drink alcohol in the first place. However, there are a few ways in which you can try and reduce the effects the next morning, according to Dr. Pedram Kordrostami, Founder of AfterDrink.
✔️ Pace yourself: ‘Your liver can only break down a set amount of alcohol every hour, and when this level is exceeded alcohol builds up in your system,’ says Dr Kordrostami.
✔️Hydrate: Sipping water alongside your favourite tipple will pay dividends the following day.
✔️ Don’t mix with energy drinks: ‘Several studies have shown that mixing alcohol with energy drinks can make you feel less drunk than you are, and increase the desire to drink more’.
✔️Avoid hair of the dog: The next day, ‘Drinking [again] replenishes the falling alcohol levels and just postpones the hangover for another day, where it will feel a lot worse,’ warns Dr Kordrostami.
✔️ Don’t drink on an empty stomach: Eating beforehand will slow down the absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream.