Getting to know your Drink Limits🍺
Alcohol🍷 consumption poses various health risks, including liver problems and high blood pressure. Drinking may also lead to motor vehicle accidents🤕 and domestic violence💢. In order to reduce these risks, we are advised to drink in moderation. The recommended alcohol intake would be 2 drinks or less in a day for MEN👨 and 1 drink or less in a day for WOMEN👩.
What is a Standard Drink?
One standard drink contains approximately 14g of pure alcohol, which is found in 12 ounces of regular beer🍺, 8 ounces of malt liquor, 5 ounces of wine🍷, and 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits.
Source: CDC
Have You Heard about HANGOVERS?
◾️Hangovers🥴️ are nothing but the unpleasant aftermath of excessive drinking.
◾️The symptoms include headache, fatigue, thirst, dizziness, nausea, and a loss of appetite.
◾️Hangovers tend to strike hardest once the alcohol has left your body.
◾️Of course, prevention is the best cure for a hangover either by staying away🙅♂️🙅♀️ from alcohol entirely or drinking in moderation. However, it is easy to overindulge during all sorts of seasonal occasions🥂.
Common Remedies for Hangovers
◾️There is no true "cure" for a hangover, other than time itself (naturally subsides between 24 to 72 hours after consuming alcohol). Still, there are remedies that can offer some forms of relief.
◾️Evidence suggests that many hangover symptoms are caused by low-grade inflammation🔥. This subsequently leads to body pains😖 and headaches. Hence non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like ASPIRIN and ibuprofen have been shown to lessen those responses.
◾️However, NSAIDs can irritate the stomach lining. Especially if your stomach is already in a fragile state. That is why NSAIDs are not recommended in people suffering from indigestion due to the possible risk of stomach ulcers/bleeding.
◾️In order to prevent gastrointestinal symptoms (indigestion, nausea🤮), antacids such as sodium bicarbonate (also known as baking soda) and anhydrous citric acid are needed as they work by neutralizing stomach acid.
👩⚕️It is best to find a remedy that combines both painkillers💊 as well as antacid properties. In that way, you would be able to kill two birds with one stone!
Prepared by: Chew Ee Wei, a HTM Pharmacist.
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Pharmacist service is available from Monday to Friday (9am-6pm).