If you have a hangover, nausea and dry mouth, try a prickly pear, you will feel better

Main Category: Alcohol / Addiction / Illegal Drugs
Article Date: 29 Jun 2004 - 12:00 PDT

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According to new research, if you eat a prickly pear your risk of having a severe hangover is reduced by 50%. The prickly pear contains an extract that reduces the symptoms of nausea, dry mouth, hangover and loss of appetite.

You can read about this research in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Unfortunately, some of your hangover symptoms will still remain. Prickly pear will not relieve your headache, soreness, feelings of weakness, dizziness and diarrhea.

In this study volunteers had to drink five to ten shots of vodka, gin, rum bourbon, whisky or tequila. People who drank bourbon had more severe hangovers than the vodka drinkers. The more impure your alcoholic drink the worse your hangover is going to be.

Dr. Jeff Wiese, lead researcher, Tulane Health Sciences Center, believes a hangover is caused by three factors:

-- Not enough good quality sleep

-- Dehydration

-- An immune response to the alcohol and the impurities in the drink.

The team monitored 64 volunteers aged 21-35. A hangover chart rated their hangovers on a scale of 1 to 6, with 6 being the most severe.

They found that the volunteers who took prickly pears had a hangover rating of just 1. The volunteers who took a placebo had a hangover rating of 1.8 (average).

The scientists added up the total hangover score for each group and found that:

-- The prickly pear group had a total score of 12.2

-- The placebo group had a total score of 14.9

The researchers stressed that the best way to reduce your chances of having a hangover is not to drink in the first place.

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