The Spring Festival is undoubtedly the most important festival for Chinese people, and it is also the most frequent holiday for wine and dinner in Chinese mainland, and the modern proverb of "three pounds of fat every festival" comes from this, and frequent entertainment has even become a heart disease for some people throughout the festival. How to spend this reunion and festive festival in a relaxed, happy and healthy way has become more and more a consideration for modern people who attach importance to their own health.
As a result, "Back to Park" launched this "Healthy Spring Festival" special issue, introducing some health knowledge related to holidays with a series of articles, and at the same time introducing some skills and methods for dealing with wine and dinner, hoping to help some readers. All my colleagues in the editorial department of "Hui Pu" also wish everyone a happy Spring Festival and a healthy family.
Written by |Fang Xuanchang.
With the exception of rare cases, people don't expect to get drunk when they get involved in a drinking party. But at the wine table, whether you want to or not, you will inevitably meet someone who wants you to drink more, make you drink "happy", or want to fight with you.
As a result, a series of local methods of "hangover" have emerged among the people. There are three of the most famous of these.
The first is to eat a raw egg a decade or two before the start of the drinking party, believing that the egg white will coat the stomach lining and prevent the alcohol from absorbing. It is true that raw eggs are slower to digest and absorb than cooked eggs (and the nutrient absorption rate is lower), but using it to "isolate" alcohol from the stomach lining has limited effect, and is not significantly better than eating some meals before drinking. And in the entire digestive tract, the intestine is the main place of alcohol absorption, and egg whites cannot always block alcohol from entering the intestine through the pylorus. It is also important to consider that raw eggs can sometimes be contaminated with salmonella, which has a certain risk of food poisoning.
The second is to take the initiative to induce vomiting by digging your throat and other means when you go to the toilet every once in a while. The "hangover" effect of this practice is often lower than many people expect, and the harm is clear (the vomit has a serious corrosive effect on the esophagus and teeth because of stomach acid). The absorption of alcohol in the esophagus is free osmosis, absorbing faster than water, and unless you vomit it quickly after drinking, a significant amount of alcohol is absorbed between drinking and going to the toilet (especially if you drink high alcohol). And everyone at the wine table should save face, so as not to go to the bathroom too often.
The third is to drink honey water before or in the middle of the drinking party. If you don't consider the problem of Clostridium botulinum toxin (stomach acid can destroy this toxin,** it is generally not poisoning; Babies under one year of age need to avoid honey due to insufficient gastric acid secretion), or replace it with artificial honey that is produced and stored in a standardized manner, which is a good practice: honey water can reduce the problem of alcohol hypoglycemia that often occurs after drinking, and on the other hand, the fructose in it can activate the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase (of course, this will also allow acetaldehyde to accumulate in the body faster).
In addition, there is a saying that people advocate drinking tea after drinking and using tea to relieve hangover, which is also wrong. Both theophylline and alcohol are diuretics that only cause the body to become dehydrated faster. Drinking sugar water or honey water can sometimes relieve the discomfort after drinking, because sugar water has the effect of slowing down alcohol hypoglycemia.
There are also old people on the wine table. Some so-called wine experts only drink liquor and are not drunk, but most of the wine he drinks enters the carpet through the hot towel on the table, or has the waiter help pour it down the drain by changing the teacups. Compared with the above-mentioned "internal strength" nature of the local method, this kind of "external strength" is not harmful to health, but there is no doubt that it is not worth advocating, even if the nature of waste and deception is not investigated, what is the point of drinking to this point?
If we take as a criterion the rate at which it affects the breakdown of ethanol and its metabolite acetaldehyde, then there is no truly effective hangover cure in the world. The drugs on the market that can relieve hangover and increase the amount of alcohol (some of which are also under the banner of imports) have no scientific basis. Drinking alcohol all year round will not speed up the metabolism of alcohol, but it can increase the body's (including the brain's) tolerance to alcohol, which will give people the illusion that the amount of alcohol has increased.
For those who drink alcohol regularly, it is recommended to supplement vitamin B1 properly every day, because long-term alcohol consumption can lead to vitamin B1 deficiency in the body. Vitamin B1 is an important coenzyme for energy metabolism in the body, and people with chronic deficiency may have no obvious symptoms, but if they suddenly consume a large amount of carbohydrates in a short period of time, or if they are infused with a large amount of glucose in the emergency department, they may quickly deplete vitamin B1 in the body, resulting in severe encephalopathy.
For health-conscious individuals, the most effective way to avoid the harm of alcohol is, of course, not drinking or drinking less. If you have to get involved in drinking for a variety of reasons, try to control the total amount and rate of alcohol intake. First of all, you must put an end to drinking on an empty stomach at the wine table. Eating some meals before drinking alcohol can make the stomach absorb alcohol more slowly; In particular, eating some carbohydrates first can avoid the symptoms of alcoholic hypoglycemia too quickly. Drink plenty of water during the drinking process to prevent dehydration and help dilute the alcohol and make the alcohol absorb more slowly. In addition, don't "take a sip" to show arrogance, drink slowly in small sips, and give your liver more time to metabolize alcohol. As the old saying goes, you can't drink as much as you can do with your chess skills.
People who drink a lot also have a summary, "mixed alcohol is easy to get drunk". In fact, the speed of drunkenness is only related to the speed at which the body absorbs alcohol, and from this point of view, if you drink the same amount of alcohol for the same amount of time, then you will obviously get drunk faster by simply drinking high alcohol. This may seem contrary to the experience of many people, but it is not difficult to understand that people often think of vomiting as drunkenness, but in fact vomiting and drunkenness are two different concepts. Drinking several liquors together can make many people's stomachs upset very quickly. Whereas, drunkenness is determined by the concentration of alcohol in the blood.
For those who don't want to get drunk, there is one last trick on the wine table, which is a harmless and innocuous deception of humans and animals - it comes from a sentence by Li Xunhuan in Gu Long's pen: pretending to be drunk is much more interesting than being really drunk.
This article is supported by the Science Popularization China Star Program Project, produced by the Science Popularization Department of the China Association for Science and Technology, supervised by the China Science and Technology Press, Beijing Zhongke Galaxy Culture Media***