10 Crazy Things Booze Does To Your Body

So the received wisdom is that your hangover is caused by dehydration. It makes sense, you certainly feel drier than the Atacama the morning after the night before and nothing feels quite so good as downing a large glass of water, but experiments have shown that a hungover person is generally no more dehydrated than a sober person.

In fact, the one study that originally claimed that alcohol is a diuretic dates back to 1942 and was only based on the results from one test subject, not exactly conclusive. So if the booze isn't drying you out then what is going on?

Well, we've already discovered that the systemic inflammation has a large part to play in the hangover from hell, but some people will react much worse than others and it's all to do with your genes.

Alcohol is broken down in two stages in your system. First, it is converted into acetaldehyde (that's the guy that lets all the bacteria into your blood), then a second enzyme is supposed to swoop in and break this down into carbon dioxide and water which can then be eliminated.

Unfortunately, some people are missing the gene that makes this second stage happen and the toxic acetaldehyde stays in their system, making the hangover all the worse. It has been found that 65% of people from eastern Asia and 5% Europeans have the genetic predisposition that doesn't allow them to get rid of alcohol quickly.

This genetic disparity is what leads to another curious effect known as Asian Glow.