How are you feeling today? A little groggy? Nauseous? Have you promised yourself that you’ll never drink again? If that sounds familiar, then you’re probably here hunting for hangover cures. Two popular folk remedies that pretend to have some scientific backing are Pedialyte and Gatorade. Let’s see if they actually work.
While just about everyone who has ever had a sip of alcohol has their own hangover cure, from “hair of the dog” to greasy foods , few recommendations are as common as chugging Gatorade or Pedialyte. The idea is simple: if drinking dehydrates you, then drinking a beverage designed to counter dehydration should make you feel better. Let’s take a quick look at both options:
Let’s take a closer look at both options to see if either can help you get over that pounding headache.
While we’re still not exactly certain what about alcohol causes hangovers specifically, we do know what happens in your body after the fact. After a night of drinking, the body releases acetaldehyde and cytokines , two causes for nausea or headaches. Your liver also gets overworked in an attempt to process all that alcohol. Dehydration is another effect of a hangover, which happens because alcohol is a diuretic and makes you pee more.
Gatorade and Pedialyte are supposedly a good cure for the dehydration portion of your hangover because they’re packed with electrolytes. Electrolytes help you retain more water and pee less, which is good for fast rehydration. Before we get there, let’s look at the nutrition numbers on both Gatorade and Pedialyte:
In theory, all these electrolytes should help with the headache part of your hangover, and since Pedialyte has more electrolytes, it sounds like better option.
