Could coffee be the answer to hangovers?

London, Jan 12 (ANI): A cup of steaming hot coffee and a painkiller may be the answer to that hangover from binge drinking, says a new study.

Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, conducted the study in mice, in which they injected doses of ethanol.

The doses usually trigger headaches in people prone to migraine. Michael Oshinsky and his colleagues found that 4 to 6 hours later, the skin around the rats' eyes became sensitive to touch, indicating that they were suffering from a headache, reports New Scientist.

Oshinsky said that the rats were not dehydrated and they received pure ethanol. Also, contrary to the fact that acetaldehyde build-up is the reason for hangovers, the rats didn't suffer the headache from it because they were given drugs to block conversion of acetaldehyde into acetate.

The reason caffeine and over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs seem to provide relief is because they block some of the effects of acetate.

If that really is the case, the best time to take them would be about 4 hours after drinking, when acetate levels begin to increase.

Dan Levy at Harvard University is wary of calling the rats' headache a hangover, but says the study is an important step towards understanding alcohol-triggered headache.

The study appears in PloS. (ANI)