Monday, December 21, 2009

Wired Science: Dark Liquor Makes for Worse Hangovers (12/18/09)

How does liquor affect sleep? A study conducted by Damaris Rohsenow of Brown University may hold the answer.
The researchers recruited 95 healthy young adults, ages 21 to 33, and gave them caffeine-free cola mixed with bourbon, vodka or tonic water. The drinking ended when participants’ breath-alcohol concentrations hit an average of 0.11, well over the legal intoxication limit. Participants were then hooked up to sleep monitors, which record brain activity, and allowed to sleep it off. At 7 a.m. the next day, the researchers roused the subjects from bed (a wake-up that did not include coffee or aspirin) and asked them to rate the severity of their hangovers.
Results?
Both the bourbon drinkers and vodka drinkers slept poorly compared to the nondrinkers, the team found. The next morning, when the participants performed cognitive tests that required attention and quick reaction times, the drinkers performed worse than the nondrinkers, but the type of alcohol had no effect on performance. Both groups of drinkers were impaired equally.
Full Storyhttp://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/dark-liquor-makes-for-worse-hangovers

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