Vitamin C has been shown to help with many things. In this post, we'll take a look at the research on whether or not vitamin c helps with hangovers.
Do you suffer from the occasional hangover? What’s worse than the way alcohol affects your body when you come down with one – especially something like a headache, nausea, vomiting, and fatigue – all the dreaded hangover symptoms.
Vitamin C is an essential nutrient that the human body needs, but many people don’t know whether it has any benefits against hangovers or in hangover pills.
Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid and L-ascorbic acid, is a vitamin found in food and used as a dietary supplement.
Vitamin C is a versatile nutrient that acts as an antioxidant in your body, so it can help with things like neutralizing free radicals and immune system function.
With the so many benefits of vitamin C, here's a list of the most significant ones:
We've researched thousands of sources to figure out does vitamin C help hangovers.
What we found is that alcohol can deplete vitamin C, so you may be especially low on vitamin C after a night of drinking. Vitamin C is a water soluble vitamin, meaning your body doesn't store it for later use, so supplementation is good.
We found some conflicting information on does taking vitamin c help hangovers versus what online claims have shown. You might be shopping vitamin c tablets for hangover, pills or powders. To know if those supplements work, let's see does vitamin C help hangovers in the studies we found?
Here's four of the most signification Vitamin C studies with regards to alcohol or hangovers:
Not one study is a home run on Vitamin C helping hangovers, although there is documentation showing Vitamin C can get depleted with alcohol consumption.
It has been suggested that vitamin C helps prevent or treat hangovers. However, there is little scientific evidence to support this.
Although one study showed Vitamin C could enhance the clearance of alcohol, the study was done in extremely limited size without controls. This does point to some evidence it may help with alcohol.
The most evident thing we found is that vitamin C is depleted with alcohol consumption, most evident in high alcohol usage patients.
So does vitamin C help hangovers? No. Vitamin C is not a hangover cure. But, can vitamin C help the body with alcohol? Yes. It shows to either be depleted or being an antioxidant it may have a potential role with helping the body process alcohol.
A little herb out of Asia might be the hidden secret.
Hovenia Dulcis, also known as dihydromyricetin (DHM which is the flavonoid contained within it), is a traditional Chinese medicine used historically to relieve symptoms of hangovers, headache and excessive alcohol consumption.
Although numerous studies done, one study alone showed that the group that took an extract of Hovenia Dulcis had a significant decline in hangover symptoms.⁶
To read more about Hovenia Dulcis and its role in hangovers, check out Why the Orient Has Been Using Japanese Raisin With Alcohol For A Millennium.
Want to supplement hovenia dulcis extract? Try our Zaca hydration + liver aid chewables today.
SOURCES
1. Some Vitamins and Minerals May Reduce Alcohol Toxicity - Promising findings for certain B vitamins, vitamin C, magnesium and zinc.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/integrative-mental-health-care/201901/some-vitamins-and-minerals-may-reduce-alcohol-toxicity
2. Improvement of hemorheological abnormalities in alcoholics by an oral antioxidant
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11379344/
3. Effect of ascorbic acid on plasma alcohol clearance
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2358613/
4. Chronic drinking interferes with absorption of critical vitamins by pancreas
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160512085348.htm#
5. Adding an orange to the banana bag: vitamin C deficiency is common in alcohol use disorders
https://ccforum.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13054-019-2435-4
6. A standardized extract of the fruit of Hovenia dulcis alleviated alcohol-induced hangover in healthy subjects
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28750942/
7. Vitamin C and alcohol: a call to action
https://nutrition.bmj.com/content/early/2018/12/04/bmjnph-2018-000010
8. The Benefits of Vitamin C
https://www.webmd.com/diet/features/the-benefits-of-vitamin-c#
