Man's Best Friend....Rats

When researchers went searching for the cure for the common hangover they went straight to those party animals Ratatouille, Willard and Ben. Researchers out of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia threw not one, but a series of parties and plied their lab rats with pure alcohol, got them drunk and took advantage of them. Not in the biblical sense but in the name of research of course. My school song come to think of it may have gotten its inspiration from similar experiments.

“We never stagger. We never fall. We sober up on pure alcohol, while the loyal faculty lies drunk on the bar room floor. More, more, more.............!”

I digress. The researchers were trying to determine just how the alcohol metabolizes so they could prevent an imminent hangover. But to truly understand how to prevent a hangover, one must first cause a hangover. So the researchers got the rats drunk. I’ll bet they enticed them by wallpapering and painting that maze of theirs to look like something right out of Studio 54. Strobe lights; disco ball; burning incense; the best Italian gorgonzola money can buy. The rats would be like putty in their hands.

The researchers first attempted to block the breakdown of the alcohol but this had no effect on the rats. It was as though they were at a rave, the fun continued pas’d mal a la tete. ( French for headache. Now I am just being presumptuous. Did I spell that right?) The researchers then gave the rats antebuse, a drug given to chronic alcoholics to block the breakdown of acetaldehyde, an organic chemical compound largely believed to cause a hangover. Acetaldehyde is unable to be broken down into acetate due to the antebuse. Acetate resulting from the oxidization of ethanol causes nausea, vomiting and unpleasant side effects, ergo, the hangover. The researchers really couldn’t tell if the rats were hung over because rats, unlike human, don’t vomit and wear what they ate. Who knew? So finally the researchers just shot the rats up with the hangover inducing acetate and sure enough the rats got a headache. How did the researchers know? Perhaps a disinterest in sex? “Not tonight professor. I have a headache”.

To be continued..................