Slanted Science

Sometimes scientists test our faith in their infallibility: see the mess of Climategate for a recent example. Other times, we read a story which makes us want to find the nearest boffin and give them a big old hug.

A sloppy, leering, drunken hug.

It’s that time of year when those people who normally drink nothing stronger than the occasional NyQuil are tempted to attend debauched office parties, where they’ll drink enough hard liquor to put Ozzy Osbourne on his back and end the night having sex with the boy from Accounts in a storage cupboard.

And the women will behave even worse.

We’re here to help, so SlantedScience now brings you news of a scientifically proven way to reduce the next day’s hangover. Sadly, we can do nothing about your marital guilt.

The study was conducted at Brown University, and headed by Damaris Rohsenow. The research paper will be published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. Here’s what they did:

95 young, heavy-drinkers were paid for two nights on the study. On one night they  drank either vodka or bourbon until they reached a breath alcohol level of 0.11. The other night, they drank alcohol-free beverages. The nights and drink types were randomized. After each session, the volunteers’ sleep patterns were measured, as well as their ability to perform tasks requiring concentration the following morning. They also answered a questionnaire describing how they felt; how bad their hangovers were.

The researchers found that, in agreement with the popularly-held belief, those who drank bourbon suffered worse hangovers than the vodka drinkers. This effect, they showed, was not due to interrupted sleep, as both groups’ sleeping patterns were the same. The boffins believe that the likely culprits are congeners: organic by-products of the fermentation processes, including (you may never drink again after this list) furfural, acetone and acetaldehyde. Bourbon contains around 37 times more cogeners than vodka. As Rohsenow notes:

There are far more of them in the darker distilled beverages and wines than in the lighter colored ones. While the alcohol alone is enough to make many people feel sick the next day, these toxic natural substances can add to the ill effects as our body reacts to them.

It’s not all good news for voddy fans, though: the study also found that even when breath alcohol had subsided to zero, both groups (vodka drinkers and bourbon drinkers) performed relatively poorly on concentration-intensive tasks (a real-world example would be driving). So, drinking clear liquor may be good for your head, but please leave the next day free after a hard session.

Don’t Hold Your Breath, But This May Lead To: a spike in sales of Stolichnaya this Christmas. And if you’d like some classy glassware to partake of your chosen spirit, check out those below from Amazon.com:

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