Hangovers hit women harder even after accounting for differences in the amount
of alcohol consumed by men and women, according to Wendy Slutske, Ph.D., Thomas
Piasecki, Ph.D., and graduate student Erin Hunt-Carter.
“This finding makes biological sense, because women tend to weigh less
and have lower percentages of total body water than do men, so they should
achieve higher degrees of intoxication and, presumably, more hangover per unit
alcohol,” Slutske and colleagues say.
In their study of Missouri undergraduates, the researchers also found students
who reported having alcohol-related problems or one or both biological parents
with a history of alcohol-related problems were more likely to experience hangover
symptoms after drinking.
The study is published in the September issue of Alcoholism:
Clinical and Experimental Research.
Slutske and colleagues developed their hangover scale to more accurately identify
and measure susceptibility to and frequency of hangovers, subjects they say
have been neglected in alcohol studies.
“This is unfortunate because existing research suggests hangover has
important consequences for both society and the individual drinker,” the
researchers say, citing the economic costs of workers taking days off to
recover and accidental injuries and death among the hangover-impaired.
“We were also surprised to discover how little research had been conducted
on hangover because the research that does exist suggests that hangover could
be an important factor in the development of problem drinking,” Piasecki
says.
The researchers asked 1,230 drinking college students — only 5 percent
were of legal drinking age — to describe how often they experienced
a set of 13 symptoms after drinking. Symptoms ranged from headaches and vomiting
to feeling weak and being unable to concentrate.
The most common hangover symptom reported was dehydration or feeling thirsty.
The least reported symptom was trembling or shaking. On average, students had
experienced five of the 13 symptoms. Based on having at least one of these
symptoms, most students were hung over between three and 11 times in the past
year.
“Thus, while hangover is a common phenomenon among college drinkers,
for most of them it occurs rarely enough that it is unlikely to have a major
deleterious impact on academic performance,” Slutske and colleagues
say.
They acknowledge, however, that 26 percent of the students reported at least
one hangover symptom once a month or more frequently.
“It would be instructive to determine whether these individuals are
at especially high risk of academic failure or whether members of Greek organizations
are over-represented among this group,” they say.
The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health.
