Scientists at Queensland University in Australia believe they've discovered a way to once and for all wipe hangovers off the face of your brain, and toilet. As we all expected they eventually would.
The Griffin University Health Institute has been conducting a study into the dehydrating effects of alcohol, which are entirely to blame for how shitty you feel the next morning and also those texts you sent. It seems that drinking a ton of booze dries out your brain, which leads to falling around, singing and wishing you were dead four seconds after you wake up. This much we all already knew.
What we didn't know is that by adding electrolytes, the miracle compound found in most energy drinks, you can actually mitigate some of the dehydration and, what's more, actually be partially hydrated by your beer. They've had to reduce some of the alcohol content, which to me seems like cheating, but it's a start.
Their study showed that a beer combined with electrolyes was 1/3 more effective at hydrating their subjects, who were the luckiest bastards on the island at the point, after they'd been rigorously exercising. Griffin's scientists/Future Nobel Prize Winners manipulated the electrolyte levels of two commercial available beers (probably not Fosters, since they don't drink that in Australia. Let's say it was a Tooeys and a Victoria Bitter) while leaving two others as they were, and found that the light beer was most effective during fluid recovery.
“Of the four different beers the subjects consumed, our augmented light beer was by far the most well retained by the body, meaning it was the most effective at re-hydrating the subjects.”
The subjects also noted that there was no discernible difference in taste between the control and Electro-Lights (which is what they should be called and I'm copyrighting that right now! That's mine! Yes?)
This is all fantastic news. One day, and possibly one day soon, we could all be enjoying a few beverages of an evening and not have to eat a fistful of painkillers and drink a cistern's worth of water before bed just so we don't wake up feeling like shit flavoured death.
Associate Professor Ben Desbrow summed it up beautifully, in the way only an Aussie possibly could:
“If you’re going to live in the real world, you can either spend your time telling people what they shouldn’t do, or you can work on ways of reducing the danger of some of these socialised activities.”
“If you’re going to live in the real world, you can either spend your time telling people what they shouldn’t do, or you can work on ways of reducing the danger of some of these socialised activities.”
Good on you.
Words by Gazz Wood
Gazz Wood is a writer from The Northern Film School at Leeds Met University. As well as writing for Wireless he can also be heard on the monthly podcast Possibly of Interest with TV Producer Howard Cohen and special guests from the world of British TV and Cinema, plus his own weekly show Gazz Wood Has A Podcast. He can also be followed on Twitter @GazzPH90
