Alkaline Water for Hangover: The Ultimate Cure

Are you searching for the ultimate hangover cure, which will help your body to recover after a long night out on the town? While you may not have considered using alkaline water to restore your system after consuming too much alcohol, it may be just the answer you've been looking for. Why should you use alkaline water for hangover?

Alkaline water delivers the hydration your body needs, in order to restore proper homeostasis. Yet, the benefits of alkaline water don't stop there, as it also helps to remove acidic waste in your system. Third, the right type of alkaline water can act as an antioxidant - which can only help your body to feel better more quickly. Finally, alkaline water may even boost the oxygenation potential of your blood, which could also make it easier to bounce back after a night of excessive drinking.

Alkaline Water for Hangover

Using alkaline water to get rid of your pounding headache and other symptoms associated with a hangover, starts with the hydration it delivers. Drinking alcohol adds a huge burden of toxins to your body (1), and your liver and kidneys must work overtime to remove these from your system. This should come as no surprise, as even the word “intoxication” stems from the Latin word that means “to poison” (2). Drinking plenty of water helps to flush out these toxins (literally poisons), and makes it easier for your cleansing organs to do their job. 

Remove Acidic Waste

While drinking plain tap water does help the detoxification process along through hydration, the water itself does nothing to neutralize the toxins. This is a key distinction to make, as alkaline water can actually help to neutralize built-up acidic waste. How?

Alkaline water is high on the pH scale (basic), and chemistry teaches that a base of sufficient strength and concentration can neutralize an acid (3). For this reason, not only will alkaline water provide hydration, at the same time its pH properties can make it a strong detoxifying agent in its own right. The upshot is that you may start feeling better more quickly, as your body rids itself of its toxins more effectively.

Antioxidant Effect

A third way that alkaline water can combat your hangover, is by providing an antioxidant effect. Only alkaline ionized water has this benefit, since it forms high pH water through ionization (also called electrolysis). Why does this matter? There are other ways to create alkaline water, but ionization is the only method that produces alkaline water with extra electrons to donate.

Though this may not sound important, it means that this type of alkaline water can neutralize active oxygen molecules in your body. Since these oxygen molecules are oxidizing - a process which is extremely hard on cells and can even cause cell death – the antioxidant impact of this water is very beneficial when trying to kick your hangover to the curb.

Possibly Improve Oxygenation

While you don't want rogue active oxygen molecules running rampant in your body, your system requires oxygen in order to live and function. This is the purpose of hemoglobin, which binds with oxygen in order to transport it within your bloodstream to wherever it is needed. While research is needed to prove this effect, there have been anecdotal reports of using alkaline water to improve the oxygenation ability of the body. This is thought to work by reducing the acid waste within the hemoglobin, making them more able to carry life-giving oxygen (4).

SOURCES:
(1)
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/mar/07/safe-level-alcohol-consumption

(2)
http://www.naturalnews.com/031412_alcohol_toxicity.html

(3)
http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/Core/Physical_Chemistry/Acids_and_Bases/Acid

(4)
http://www.lifeionizers.com/blog/alkaline-water-oxygenated-water/