Hangover Remedies – Vitamins

Guys, I’m giving you all the tricks of the trade here. First it was some food tips, and now it’s time to listen to your mothers and take your vitamins because they actually play a good role in preventing you from suffering a hangover the morning after a wild night (or a wine night, for you more sophisticated, yet equally as classy, folks).

Why Vitamins?

Like I’ve explained in earlier posts, alcohol is a diuretic. This means it is a substance that causes you to lose water – fast. It does this by inhibiting a hormone that’s important for your body’s water retention, which means all the water you would usually retain is lost in your urine.

Water isn’t the only thing that is lost in your urine. You also lose electrolytes, which are important to replenish and were discussed a bit in an older post, in addition to (…drum roll please…) Vitamins!

That’s right! Unfortunately, your kidneys aren’t the greatest filtration systems when you’re drinking, so they let anything that enters the nephron stay there and be converted into urine. This unfortunately means we lose nutrients and minerals, including some of the vitamins we may have circulating in our bloodstream.

Which Vitamins should we be focusing on?

The most important one, in terms of preventing hangovers, is probably B1 (also known as thiamine). B1 helps prevent the accumulation of a particular molecule, glutarate, in the brain. So after you drink, B1 is released in your urine and glutarate accumulates in your head. This has been linked to headaches. So if you take a supplement for B1 earlier before drinking and then the morning after drinking, your head should feel a little happier with whatever decisions you made. B1 also plays an important role in the metabolism of carbohydrates and proteins as well as the function of your nerves and muscles (which are a lot weaker after you have a couple drinks).

Hospitals also have these things called “banana bags” or “rally packs” that help patients with chemical imbalances or nutritional deficiencies. Yes, I’m comparing someone who experiences a hangover with a patient – take this comparison with a grain of salt. These banana bags have all of the things that can help restore a person who has lost a lot of their vitamins, fluids, and other important molecules. While you probably can’t, and shouldn’t, walk into the hospital to ask for a banana bag after going out all night, it is good to know which vitamins they would supply to you!

So here’s the list:

• Vitamin A
• Vitamin C
• Vitamin E
• Vitamin K
• Vitamin B9 (Folic acid)
• Vitamin B1 (Our bff a.k.a. thiamine)
• Potassium
• Calcium
• Iron
• Magnesium Sulfate

I’m not saying to go out and buy supplements for all of these things, but make sure that you are eating foods that have these vitamins in it, regardless of whether you’re planning to paint the town red or not. And if you really want to have these vitamin supplements, look into multivitamins (after asking your physician for his/her opinion).

I’m giving you a lot of information about Hangovers and Alcohol in general, but please keep in mind that everything is great in moderation. Just because you have these tools under your belt doesn’t mean it’s time to re-enact every scene from the Hangover movies. Play safe! 🙂

Hangovers – Electrolytes

Last week, we talked about what a hangover is, what its symptoms are and why hangovers cause headaches. This week, we’ll take a brief look at the importance of electrolytes in relation to hangovers.

A little recap

A little while ago, we talked about how alcohol inhibits a hormone called the antidiuretic hormone, which is the hormone that allows the body to reabsorb water from our kidneys before the kidneys send the final solution to our bladders for release. With this inhibition, not only is there not enough water reabsorbed but, because this hormone is inhibited, we urinate frequently under the influence of alcohol.

Now where do electrolytes fit in?

As a result of this frequent urination, we lose more than just water from our bodies. In addition to water, we lost electrolytes like sodium and potassium.

These electrolytes are important for several processes in our bodies, including nerve and muscle functions. When you lose a lot of electrolytes, your nerve and muscle functions are weaker as they require the electrolytes to help propagate signals. This is why you feel tired the morning after a rowdy night.

The absence of electrolytes also leaves you feeling nauseous and with an awful headache because of how dehydrated you are.

Help me, what can I do?

There was a post I did a million years ago (it was last July) where I talked a bit about electrolytes. Here’s the deal with them: where electrolytes go, water goes. So it’s time to power up with some electrolytes because the more electrolytes there are in your body, the better your body will retain water and the easier it will be to rehydrate! So grab some sports drinks, make sure it has some potassium in it, and rehydrate! You’ll feel like a normal being soon enough 🙂

Hangovers – Headaches

Hello Children, it’s time to learn about one of the many upsetting effects of alcohol. Okay, I know most of you are probably people actually going through a hangover and you want to know why this is happening to you… I mean, you’re a good person (probably). So why oh why is last night hurting you today?

What is a hangover?

Unlike the movie ‘The Hangover’, where the characters pretty much go on an adventure the day after a rowdy night with seemingly no physical repercussions other than a couple tattoos, a hangover would probably make you want to sleep for a whole day.

A hangover, formally called a veisalgia, is basically the umbrella term for the after effects of drinking. It includes headaches, body aches, tiredness, weakness, thirst, nausea (sometimes vomiting), general stomach pain, diarrhea, and a slew of other symptoms like depression, vertigo and decreased attention.

Of course, you won’t likely experience all of these symptoms at once! There are different hangovers and they depend on how much you drink and how well your body is at detoxifying the alcohol. If you drink a lot and your body detoxifies alcohol at a very slow rate, then you will likely have an extremely bad hangover (unless you take some precautions – which will be explored in a later post!).

Why do we get hangovers?

If you recall last week’s post, where we discussed the effects of alcohol on the body, alcohol inhibits a hormone. This hormone, the antidiuretic hormone, is responsible for the reabsorption of water by your body’s kidneys. Without the activity of this hormone, the water that would have been retained by your body goes straight to your bladder and is then excreted. This loss of water results in your body becoming dehydrated, which leads to you getting a hangover.

Headaches and Hangovers, oh my!

Even though you are consuming a form of liquid, the amount of alcohol consumed is not as much as the amount of water lost during urination. This dehydrated state is what causes your headache, as the organs in your body are trying to their best to retain as much water as possible – even if that means stealing water from your brain. This results in your brain shrinking in size, making the membranes that connect your brain to your skull stretch – thus your headache. Crazy, huh?

Next week, we’ll talk about the relationship between Electrolytes and Hangovers.

Alcohol and Urine

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve talked to you about pee… a lot. But now that we’ve got all of that good stuff down pat, it’s time to get to the point of this whole thing: the effects of alcohol on urine!

Whenever you drink alcohol, you eventually feel the need to urinate frequently. But why?!

Well, last week we learned about the two hormones that are involved in regulating the production of urine: the antidiuretic hormone and aldosterone.

Interestingly enough, alcohol has an inhibitory effect on the antidiuretic hormone. This hormone is responsible for helping the body retain water by preventing the loss of water through excretory pathways, like the urine system.

The inhibition of the antidiuretic hormone results in the loss of regulating how much water is reabsorbed in the kidneys, which means that there is an uncontrollable loss of water in your urine, which is why you feel the need to urinate a lot. Your bladder is always filled because there is no reabsorption of water in the nephron of your kidneys.

So basically, alcohol reduces the amount of water reabsorbed in the kidneys, which leads to the water ending up in your bladder and putting pressure on your urinary sphincters. And then you feel the need to urinate, even if you already went to the bathroom 10 minutes ago.

One of many life’s mysteries have been solved. The inhibition of the antidiuretic hormone by alcohol is another reason why rehydration is so important for post-drinking. You lost all of the water your body would have reabsorbed when you peed, so you need to drink even more water to save your body from being in a state of dehydration.

And that’s how alcohol affects your body’s urinary system! Next week, we’ll look into hangovers.

The Urinary System – Concentration and Dilution

Last time, we talked about how the urinary system allows for our bodies to selectively reabsorbs things that were filtered out of our circulatory system. One of the molecules that can be reabsorbed is water, which is an important molecule for several reasons. In terms of the urinary system, water is important for the concentration and dilution of our urine.

The concentration and the dilution of urine is regulated by 2 hormones: Anti-diuretic hormone and Aldosterone.

The anti-diuretic hormone is released if you’re dehydrated, and literally translates to “against the passing of urine”. In situations where you are dehydrated, your blood volume will be low due to the lack of a sufficient amount of water, resulting in a lower blood pressure. To counteract this, the anti-diuretic acts to reduce the amount of water lost by the body and minimizes how much urine you make and release. This will result in a more concentrated urine that has a less water than usual and is a deeper yellow due to the higher concentration of urea.

Aldosterone is also released when you’re dehydrated. This hormone is responsible for the increase in thirst while also helping your body retain water by increasing the amount of sodium in your body. The more solute there is in your body, the more likely water is to stay with the solute (rules of osmosis, hurray!).

These hormones exert their effects primarily on the distal tubule of the nephron (after the loop of Henle), so that is where the water is reabsorbed!

So when these hormones are released, your urine will be more concentrated because water is retained by your body! Amazing, right?

Next week: We will finally get to talking about the effect of Alcohol on Urine!

Is there something you’d like to learn about? Tell me about it here and I may just do a post about it 🙂

The Urinary System – Selective Reabsorption

Last week, we learned about the general filtration process that occurs in our kidneys. This week, we’ll learn just how our kidneys modify the filtrate to produce urine.

The filtrate that is in the renal tubule consists of water as well as other small molecules, like sugars and urea. Some of these molecules, like sugars, can return to the bloodstream in a ‘process’ known as selective reabsorption. It’s called ‘selective’ reabsorption because the bloodstream is picky as to what it absorbs from the tubule. The molecules that leave the tubule enter tiny blood vessels next to the tubule, which are called peritubular capillaries. The molecules can then be carried through the rest of the circulatory system, to provide our body cells with nutrients (if they’re sugars).

Parts of the Kidney

Selective reabsorption mainly occurs in the proximal tubule, which is the beginning of the tubule. The proximal tubule is just after the Bowman’s capsule. Whenever a molecule leaves, it is accompanies by water, which means a lot of water is reabsorbed by the bloodstream in this process.

By returning the molecules to the bloodstream, the remaining filtrate’s composition changes. As water leaves, the concentration of particles in the tubule increases.

Hormones can affect what is reabsorbed in the distal tubule. These hormones are the anitidiuretic hormone (ADH), which is also known as vasopressin, and aldosterone. They’ll be discussed next week when we talk about Concentration and Dilution!

The Urinary System – Filtration

Last week, we talked about the basics of the urinary system, including the organs involved. This week, let’s take a closer look at what happens in the kidney, starting with filtration. The posts will be segmented because there will be a lot of new terms coming your way, and I would hate for you to get overwhelmed! So let’s learn how our bodies makes our pee, step by step.

Parts of the kidney

The basic functional unit within the kidneys is known as the nephron. This consists of all of the numbered portions, starting at the glomerulus (5) and ending at the distal tubule (6). 

The main components involved in filtration are the arteries, and the glomerulus.

Filtration

It is at the Bowman’s capsule where the filtration of blood occurs. The blood from the renal artery (renal means ‘kidney’) flows into a smaller version of an artery, known as the afferent arteriole. The name sounds weird, but ‘afferent’ basically means ‘towards something’. So this arteriole is moving blood towards the glomerulus. So this arteriole can also be referred to as the afferent glomerular arteriole.

The afferent arteriole then branches to form tiny blood vessels known as capillaries. These capillaries form a ball-like structure, which is part of the glomerulus (5). The capillaries are therefore called the glomerular capillaries.

The blood from the capillaries continues to flow into the next vessel, which is another arteriole, named the efferent arteriole. ‘Efferent’ means ‘away from something’, so the blood is moving away from the glomerulus. So this arteriole can also be referred to as the efferent glomerular arteriole.

This movement of the blood increases the amount of pressure within the capillaries, causing fluids to leak out. These fluids pass through a filter-like membrane, known as the glomerular basement membrane. Some substances are too large to pass through the basement membrane and, therefore, continue to circulate through the bloodstream.

The filtrate that goes through the glomerular basement membrane enters the Bowman’s capsule. The space inside the Bowman’s capsule is continuous with the rest of the tubule, which includes the proximal tubule, the loop of Henle and the distal tubule. The filtrate is concentrated and modified within these components of the tubule, which will be discussed next week.

And that is, thankfully, all there is to the filtration process for the urinary system! Next week, we’ll learn about what happens to the filtrate in the tubule.

The Urinary System – Basics

Before we can talk about how alcohol affects your urinary system, it’s important to understand the urinary system and how it usually works first. This will be a pretty general overview, though I will also provide a molecular overview of the system next week!

So let’s start learning about how urine is made!

The Urine Pathway

The organs involved in your urinary system:

• Liver – synthesizes urea and releases it into the blood
• Kidneys – filters the blood for urea, sodium, bicarbonate and water. If they are high levels of any of them, the kidneys will divert them from the bloodstream, and produces urine.
• Bladder – the products of urine move from the kidney to your bladder, then to the urethra to be released.

The bladder actually has two muscles that control the release of urine: the internal and external sphincter. The internal sphincter relaxes on its own accord, thanks to your sympathetic nervous system. It is the external sphincter that helps you control whether you pee your pants or not.

And those are the basics of the urinary system! Next week, we’ll be looking at the detailed pathway (for you keeners (: ).