# What makes you nauseous during a hangover? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 30, 2006, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-you-nauseous-during-a-hangover/370731 "2006-08-30T00:34:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![diggleblop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@diggleblop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggleblop)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-you-nauseous-during-a-hangover/370731/1 "2006-08-30T00:34:57Z")
What makes your stomach have the sick feeling? Not so much a terrible vomiting hangover, but a mild hangover, ones where you just feel queezy… ---
**Author:** ![freckafree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/freckafree/32/3050_2.png) [@freckafree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/freckafree)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-you-nauseous-during-a-hangover/370731/2 "2006-08-30T01:42:22Z")
[QUOTE=diggleblop] What makes your stomach have the sick feeling? Not so much a terrible vomiting hangover, but a mild hangover, ones where you just feel queezy… [/QUOTE] Nitpick… What makes you **nauseated** during a hangover? What is **nauseous** to you during a hangover? “Nauseous” means “inducing nausea.” Sorry. The nauseated/nauseous thing is one of my pet word peeves. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-you-nauseous-during-a-hangover/370731/3 "2006-08-30T01:50:13Z")
[QUOTE=freckafree] What makes you **nauseated** during a hangover? What is **nauseous** to you during a hangover? “Nauseous” means “inducing nausea.” [/QUOTE] [Not so much anymore](http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-nau1.htm). Usage evolves. Life goes on. ---
**Author:** ![sangfroid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e0b2c6/32.png) [@sangfroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sangfroid)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-you-nauseous-during-a-hangover/370731/4 "2006-08-30T01:56:44Z")
To answer the o/p–lack of water. When I choose to imbibe more than I know I should, I make sure to drink lots of water (just water–not juice, soda, etc.) both during the evening and during the night. I keep a 32 oz. bottle on the nightstand, always. Whether drinking alcohol or not. Hydration is a _good thing_. For me, anyway… ---
**Author:** ![R.P.McMurphy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7993a0/32.png) [@R.P.McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R.P.McMurphy)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-you-nauseous-during-a-hangover/370731/5 "2006-08-30T02:00:30Z")
In pedestrian terms, your body thinks it is being poisoned and is trying to rid itself of the culprit. ---
**Author:** ![freckafree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/freckafree/32/3050_2.png) [@freckafree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/freckafree)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-you-nauseous-during-a-hangover/370731/6 "2006-08-30T02:04:39Z")
[QUOTE=Q.E.D.] [Not so much anymore](http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-nau1.htm). Usage evolves. Life goes on. [/QUOTE] My sister is right! I’m a grammar/useage dinosaur! :smack: Apologies, **digglebop**. I think I’ll go drown my sorrows, and then when I wake up nauseous in the morning, I’ll drink a BIG diet coke with lots of ice. I can’t think of any particular thing that makes me queasy, though – just how to combat it. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-you-nauseous-during-a-hangover/370731/7 "2006-08-30T07:33:33Z")
Have you ever been dehydrated? Due to extremely friggin hot weather in Ohio this summer, I had the honor of being dehydrated on no less than three occasions. You get dizzy, you get a headache, you get nauseated. This is how the feeling of a hangover has been described to me, too. Drinking tons of water doesn’t help bring you out of this state as much as a good dose of electrolytes (Gatorade) will. Drinking alcohol dehydrates you. And if you drink enough you don’t spend the 8-10 hours after the last drink downing water and Gatorade - you spend it sleeping. So your recovery doesn’t begin until you wake up. I’ve never had the pleasure of being hung over, as I don’t drink that often. Usually if I DO drink that much, I spend a good amount of time afterwards drinking water so I can “flush” myself out and drive home. On the few occasions when I have drunk too much, drinking tons of water before I went to sleep made all the difference. As for the mechanics of why being dehydrated makes your tummy upset…_shrug_ It sure is a good way to get you to stop what you’re doing and re-hydrate, though. ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-you-nauseous-during-a-hangover/370731/8 "2006-08-30T07:59:05Z")
Anyone know why drinking wine to excess causes a worse hangover than hard liquor? Is it the tannins, or the sugar, or something else? ---
**Author:** ![diggleblop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@diggleblop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggleblop)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-you-nauseous-during-a-hangover/370731/9 "2006-08-30T11:50:03Z")
[QUOTE=Rubystreak] Anyone know why drinking wine to excess causes a worse hangover than hard liquor? Is it the tannins, or the sugar, or something else? [/QUOTE] lol, Wine is what actually made me start this thread, I drank almost a gallon of white wine with someone else the other night and was sick to my stomach for the most part of the day. Haha, but yeah, I was really wondering more about the mechanics of how your stomach (or is it your brain) works during hangover phase. Does your stomach lose more cells than normal and it’s trying to replace them? Hence the sick feeling? Is it just working overtime? When it’s trying to rid the body of the alcohol, what is it doing down there? That’s what I mean. Thanks, guys ! ---
**Author:** ![slaphead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@slaphead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slaphead)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-you-nauseous-during-a-hangover/370731/10 "2006-08-30T12:57:51Z")
[QUOTE=diggleblop] I drank almost a gallon of white wine with someone else the other night and was sick to my stomach for the most part of the day. [/QUOTE] Yeah, that’ll do it. I guess it wasn’t exactly a vintage wine either? Drinking and going to bed without drinking lots of water or similar means your stomach gets to spend all night steeping in a mixture of stale booze and hydrochloric acid, forming all sorts of nasty chemicals that irritate your stomach lining. Couple that with all the aldehydes and other nasties in your bloodstream, and its barfin’ time. ---
**Author:** ![solkoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@solkoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solkoe)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-you-nauseous-during-a-hangover/370731/11 "2006-08-30T13:05:18Z")
[QUOTE=sangfroid] To answer the o/p–lack of water. When I choose to imbibe more than I know I should, I make sure to drink lots of water (just water–not juice, soda, etc.) both during the evening and during the night. I keep a 32 oz. bottle on the nightstand, always. Whether drinking alcohol or not. Hydration is a _good thing_. For me, anyway… [/QUOTE] Dehydration is definitely part of it but I believe that the products of the metabolism of ethyl alcohol are poisonous. From wiki > [@](#): > > The initial product of ethanol metabolism, acetaldehyde, is more toxic than ethanol itself. The body can quickly detoxify some acetaldehyde by reaction with glutathione and similar thiol-containing biomolecules. When acetaldehyde is produced beyond the capacity of the body’s glutathione supply to detoxify it, it accumulates in the bloodstream until further oxidized to acetic acid. The headache, nausea, and malaise associated with an alcohol hangover stem from a combination of dehydration and acetaldehyde poisoning I would like to know if the enzymes that metabolize ethanol build up in the blood. I have noticed that the more I drink (if I am drinking for several days in a row), the less my hangover is. ---
**Author:** ![butler1850](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@butler1850](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/butler1850)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-you-nauseous-during-a-hangover/370731/12 "2006-08-30T13:46:14Z")
[QUOTE=ZipperJJ] As for the mechanics of why being dehydrated makes your tummy upset…_shrug_ It sure is a good way to get you to stop what you’re doing and re-hydrate, though. [/QUOTE] How? When I’m hung over enough to be nauseous (nauseated), the last thing I want to do is put anything into my stomach. Even if it is the best way to cure the condition. Add to that the headache, and I just want to stay in bed and die. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-you-nauseous-during-a-hangover/370731/13 "2006-08-30T13:47:56Z")
[QUOTE=solkoe] I would like to know if the enzymes that metabolize ethanol build up in the blood. [/QUOTE] > [@](#): > > those who have acquired ethanol tolerance have a greater quantity of these enzymes, and metabolize ethanol more rapidly. From the [Wikipedia article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol) Small Clanger, host to special forces style enzymes. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-you-nauseous-during-a-hangover/370731/14 "2006-08-30T13:50:49Z")
I tend to find that sticking my fingers down my throat makes me nauseous when I have a hangover. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-you-nauseous-during-a-hangover/370731/15 "2006-08-30T18:16:33Z")
What I also want to know is why even plain old water tastes so foul when you have a hangover. You know you should be drinking it but it just tastes… yuck. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-you-nauseous-during-a-hangover/370731/16 "2006-08-30T20:40:39Z")
[QUOTE=solkoe] Dehydration is definitely part of it but I believe that the products of the metabolism of ethyl alcohol are poisonous. From wiki I would like to know if the enzymes that metabolize ethanol build up in the blood. I have noticed that the more I drink (if I am drinking for several days in a row), the less my hangover is. [/QUOTE] If I remember my biochemistry correctly the problem with drinking methanol is that the metabolic pathway does not lead through acetaldehyde, which, as your wiki cite states, can be metabolised rather quickly, but through acetone, which can not. The treatment for methanol poisoning used to be, and may still be, administration of ethanol. The pathway that would have been used to convert methanol to acetone then preferentially converts ethanol to aldehyde, and Bob’s your uncle. I guess sooner or later they’d have to wean you off the ethanol, but if it was done slowly enough you could metabolize the acetone. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-you-nauseous-during-a-hangover/370731/17 "2006-08-30T20:58:23Z")
[QUOTE=freckafree] My sister is right! I’m a grammar/useage dinosaur! :smack: Apologies, **digglebop**. I think I’ll go drown my sorrows, and then when I wake up nauseous in the morning, I’ll drink a BIG diet coke with lots of ice. I can’t think of any particular thing that makes me queasy, though – just how to combat it. [/QUOTE] I just say “naused” and avoid conflict. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-you-nauseous-during-a-hangover/370731/18 "2006-08-30T21:15:40Z")
[QUOTE=diggleblop] **What makes you nauseus during a hangover?** [/QUOTE] Just about every damned thing.