They don't call it intoxication for nothing. Happy juice is poisonous. Put enough of it into your body and you die. What concerns us here, however, is not so much alcohol itself (which we'll take as a given) but the by-products of alcohol, and especially one particularly nasty chemical critter by the name of acetaldehyde. It's got a lot more of the bad kind of kapow, and the latest research suggests that it may be responsible for the worst of your hangover.
SYMPTOMS
After you ingest alcohol, your body breaks it down into (among other things) acetaldehyde, before converting it into less harmful substances. The acetaldehyde messes with your brain at the same time as a host of depleted minerals are short-circuiting your nervous system, and that's in addition to low blood sugar and the classic headache-and-dry-mouth symptoms caused by dehydration. The result: nausea, twitchy nerves, unpleasantness, pessimism, terrible brain pain, and a temporary suspension of the laws of gravity.
The severity of a hangover varies according to . . .
The amount you've guzzled in a given period of time
Your own innate enzymatic capacity to deal with the poisons
Your age
Translation: the more you drink in a short amount of time, the more you'll feel the alcohol. One's weight is also a factor (the less you weigh, the more you'll feel it), as is a genetic predisposition. Finally, the older you get, the more you'll feel the alcohol the next morning.
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Understand what alcohol does to your body.
