Why do hangovers happen?
Have you ever wondered why we have hangovers? We know that alcohol causes them, but how? After doing some research I found that your liver actually creates acetaldehyde when it breaks down the ethanol from the alcohol you overconsumed. Acetaldehyde causes many of the common effects of hangovers, such as headaches, nausea, and fatigue. The levels of acetaldehyde also build up overnight. As you sleep, your brain does not enter REM sleep since it is suppressed by alcohol. Many people fall asleep quicker, but wake up feeling much more tired since we are unable to complete our REM cycle.
Hangovers often hit teens harder due to many factors, the main one being binge drinking and inexperience with alcohol. A point of conflict in the United States is the argument that the drinking age be lowered to 18, like many other countries in the world. They bring up the argument of the “forbidden fruit.” The idea behind this is we as humans have a natural instinct to want what we can’t have. Therefore if we grow up not able to possess alcohol, we will hold it in higher value than if we grew up with access to it. Another argument for lowering the drinking age is that in our current culture, teens resort to drinking in dangerous, isolated, or unsafe areas, while unsupervised. This leads to bad decisions without adult/law enforcement intervention, and often without health professionals around.
On the other hand, many argue that the brain isn’t fully developed until the age of 25. However, we are allowed to vote and be tried as an adult by age 18. They also state that drinking at a young age has statistically been shown to increase the likelihood of an addiction in the future. Another common fear is that this would bring alcohol into high schools, where 18 year olds spend the day hanging out with 17, 16 and 15 year olds. Personally I am conflicted on this issue. I do think that waiting until 21 was way too long, however I do not want the rate of drunk driving to go up, nor do I want the rate of alcohol addictions to go up in the United States.
Knuces, Laura. “The Science behind a Hangover.” Supplements and Health Tests, 13 Sept. 2001, www.thorne.com/take-5-daily/article/the-science-behind-a-hangover?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23211254821&gbraid=0AAAAADLUbJUrebw306nZHd62hELi3G_Dm&gclid=Cj0KCQiA0KrJBhCOARIsAGIy9wD9KKety_WeLAKKSeTq-d8A-epp6NsgWm7jtRctkADt3PBDt5-704IaApWiEALw_wcB.
Tapert, Susan F., et al. “Alcohol and the Adolescent Brain: Human Studies.” Alcohol Research & Health, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 2004, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6601673/.
I actually never considered why a hangover happens and what transpires for it to occur. Drinking alcohol is not as desirable once you are allowed to do so. Some people urge to lower the drinking age to encourage drinking in moderation and around adults instead of unsupervised. To oppose this stance, the brain is not developed and drinking causes harmful effects to occur. So there might be a possible argument to increase the legal drinking age.
ReplyDeleteI'm really glad you decided to cover this topic, it's certainly a subject of great controversy and is massively relevant in our day and age. There's an entire culture around binge-drinking especially in colleges and universities (think hazing/frat culture at large schools!). Like you I feel super conflicted about the drinking age in America, as you see many European countries with a lower drinking age (some as low as 16) and in my experience, those areas with a lower drinking age end up having a young adult population that simply doesn't "care" about alcohol the way that Americans in their early 20s do. It totally falls into the forbidden fruit theory you bring up. We kind of put it on a pedestal since we don't have (legal) access to it at a young age, which makes it all the more alluring. I do think lowering the drinking age in America could be beneficial, but also very risky and difficult to impose.
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