After a night of drinking, Sprite is the best way to cure a hangover according to a new study.
"These results are a reminder that herbal and other supplements can have pharmacological activities that both harm and benefit our health," Edzard Ernst, Emeritus professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter told Chemistry World.
A study, which examined 57 drinks from herbal teas to ones with more fizz found that consuming drinks with lemon and lime is the most productive way to help the body process alcohol. Researchers also found some of the drinks helped speed up the process of the body breaking down alcohol, and ultimately assisted it to alleviate a hangover. Other beverages however, slowed down the process, and caused symptoms to remain.
The study also told researchers that younger drinkers and those who drink regularly do not feel the effects of alcohol as much as older people because they produce more alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme Chemistry World reported. Hangover headaches also lessen with age.
Scientists researched what causes a hangover and found that the condition could be due to the process the body goes through to ingest alcohol which causes symptoms such as nausea and headaches. Researchers also studied how the different drinks affected the body using the chemical acetate, and an enzyme called acetaldehyde dehydrogenase which digests the ethanol, found in alcohol, into the chemical acetaldehyde.
According to Chemistry World, exposure to the chemical acetaldehyde causes hangover symptoms, and its counterpart, acetate is less dangerous.
