Doctor issues hangover advice as he explains how to 'get drunk more slowly'
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A health expert has shared a simple trick that could help you avoid getting drunk too quickly and even lessen the severity of a hangover. Over the festive season, Brits are known to indulge in more alcohol than usual. While this can lead to health risks and the dreaded next-day hangover, there are ways to mitigate these effects.
With this in mind, NHS doctor Karan Rajan, who boasts over five million followers on social media platform TikTok, suggests eating before drinking to slow down the impact of alcohol. He was responding to another user's post which claimed cheese could be the perfect pre-drinking snack.
That user had said: "If you are going for a night out on the town and you are going to drink alcohol, eating cheese before drinking alcohol can decrease your risk of having a hangover. This is because cheese has a lot of protein fat and complex carbs that can coat the stomach.".
Yet Dr Raj said it's impossible to completely safeguard against the effects of drinking. He said: "Here's a life lesson from a doctor: you can't line your stomach or form a physical barrier before drinking alcohol to get less drunk because most of the alcohol is absorbed in your small intestine, but you can slow down digestion overall and GI transit time by consuming meals high in fats, protein and fibre and also slow down the rate of alcohol absorption.".
During an illustrative experiment using a balloon and pipe, he demonstrated how these nutrients prompt the stomach to release food more slowly into the small intestine. He elaborated: "This delays alcohol's entry into the small intestine, which means it's absorbed more gradually in the bloodstream. So you get less spikes in the blood alcohol concentration and you get drunk much slower.".
