Why does drinking a pint of milk before going out slow the effects of alcohol? Why does a chip butty seem like such a good idea after a night in the pub? And why, if alcohol is such a powerful drug that it can make our legs turn to rubber, our mouths talk scribble, or the party bore with a vigorous growth of nasal hair and so keen to share his detailed knowledge of Disraeli's early years seem utterly mesmerising, are we able to drink it at all?
The science of drinking is generally ignored in favour of in-depth analysis of taste and flavour - and rightly so. But here are a few things to contemplate as you sip a glass of wine in the fading autumnal light. Once swallowed, alcohol passes to the stomach and then to the small intestine, where most of it is absorbed. Common sense tells us that if our stomachs are full, the alcohol will have to wait its turn to reach the absorbent walls of the small intestine and it will take longer to experience the effects of drunkenness.
The presence of fats further slows the progress of foods from stomach to small intestine, which is why drinking a glass of full-fat milk helps alcohol pass at a more gentle pace into the body. This is also a good reason for choosing foie gras canapes over crudites. Once through the walls of the small intestine, alcohol sweeps through the body very rapidly. In the lungs, some of the alcohol in our blood passes into the air we have inhaled, and is then exhaled. But no more than 10 per cent is excreted in our urine and breath.
The rest must be broken down in the liver by an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH). ADH exists to deal with the alcohol that is produced naturally by the body, but it is present only in small quantities, so when we go out drinking it really has its work cut out. No matter how much we drink, once it is fully occupied, ADH plods along at a fixed rate. This is why it can take a long time to detoxify after a heavy drinking bout.
While the liver is busy breaking down alcohol, it doesn't do such a good job of metabolising glucose. Blood sugar tends to drop - and we get an onset of the munchies. The next morning can be tough. Alcohol is a diuretic and the consequent water loss can give us a headache and a raging thirst. Because it also causes the blood vessels all over the body to dilate, extra pressure in the skull makes the headache worse. And then there's the problem of low blood sugar, which is probably still with us. I deal with all three of these by drinking a can of Coca-Cola. The liquid eases the symptoms of dehydration; the caffeine also helps with the secondary cause of the headache; and, for the blood sugar, there's all that lovely sugar.
Gin and tonic, anyone?
