Quick tip: for kids, you can make popsicles out of the solution, which will moderate the rate at which they drink it.

Not if you eat popsicles the way I do! Lick, lick, crunch, more please.

My teeth hurt just from reading your comment.

They also make Pedialyte popsicles. Great for kids and hungover adults.

The salt won't freeze though?

Salt water freezes fine... Lower than 32f/0c but not too much for a regular household freezer. https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=1722

If you look at the recipe it's like 3g of salt in 1L of water; that lowers the freezing point a bit, but not much.

Salt freezes at 801°. If the temperature is too high for the salt to freeze, it's way too high for the water or the salt–water eutectic to freeze. Also, you are going to have worse health problems than dehydration pretty quick.

Some quick googling estimates 6 tsp of sugar is about 25 grams or 100 calories. For comparison, a 32oz bottle of Gatorade G2 (low calorie) has about 19 grams of sugar, and a 32oz bottle of normal Gatorade has about 56 grams.

Adding - 1/2 tsp of salt is 2.5 grams of which it is 1 gram of sodium. G2 - 435mg sodium, 120mg potassium; normal - 400mg, 100mg.

As a third point of reference, the Strawberry Lemonade 32oz Powerade I have here next to my keyboard (now filled with water) contains 56g sugar, 400 mg sodium, 93 mg potassium.

Note that the label says it contains 21g sugar, 150mg sodium, 35 mg potassium - per 12 fluid ounces. Multiply by 2.66 if you drink the whole bottle.

In table format:

                    DIY Oral    Gatorade    Gatorade    Powerade    Pedialyte
                    Solution    G2          
    Sugar (g)       25          19          56          56          24
    Sodium (mg)     1000        435         400         400         986
    Potassium (mg)  0           120         100         93          780

(per 32 Oz)

It's striking how similar the regular Gatorade and Powerade are. Also, the powerade.com nutritional info site is "down for maintenance", had to search elsewhere: http://archive.is/2018.02.22-160258/https://www.powerade.com.... They have the Coca-Cola logo.gif on the site, but unfortunately no animated orange construction barrels.

Edit: Added Pedialyte

There is a major difference between Gatorade and Powerade, which is the type of sugar.

Gatorade has glucose (aka dextrose, the same sugar as an IV bag) while Powerade has high fructose corn syrup.

Glucose can be used directly by your cells while fructose is metabolized in the liver first. So for quick relief from dehydration I choose Gatorade.

* Glucose = 100% dextrose

* table sugar / sucrose = 50% dextrose

* high fructose corn syrup = ~40% dextrose

All three manufactured/retail products listed also contain a non-insignificant amount of potassium, particularly the Pedialyte, to which the homemade solution matches best. Is the value added by potassium minimal enough to not include it? Or is availability in a common household more of an issue?

I have seen in stores sodium-free salt, and reduced-sodium salt, which both substitute potassium for the "missing" sodium, which can be a source of potassium if the added benefit is worthwhile.

The relevant link, unfortunately it does not list the potassium in mg - https://www.coca-colaproductfacts.com/en/products/powerade/s...

Looking at the info for pedialyte, 12 oz contains 370mg of sodium, and 9g of sugar.

So for 32oz, that 986mg sodium, and 24g sugar, which seems spot on to the articles recommended ratios.

https://pedialyte.com/products/classic/mixed-fruit

This entire thread is reminding me of my Marine Corps days. Super hung over? Hey doc, we need to practice our IV skills... sweet cold hangover relief. About to do an extra hard day of training? Drink a bottle of pedialite and grab the other camelback you put Gatorade in.

Hydration is no joke.

The zinc is also recommended against diarrhoea: http://www.who.int/elena/titles/bbc/zinc_diarrhoea/en/

what does the sugar and salt do in this case?

edit: it's in the article:

> for rehydration, glucose is basically as important as sodium. The two compounds work together to pull water into shriveled cells that have been deprived of ample water.

IIRC it's mostly a factor for gut absorption: when gut cells absorb glucose, sodium is cotransported (goes along for the ride) and thus pass through the gut and into the bloodstream at a much greater rate, and the greater sodium gradient increases the rate of water absorption: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11193601

And the sodium also (and originally) serves to combat hyponatremia, as lost fluid generally brings sodium along for the ride if you rehydrate with non-electrolytic water you find yourself with mild to severe low sodium levels.

It drove me a little bit crazy to hear a mom complaining about how she couldn't find sugar-free Pedialyte for her child. It is difficult to explain that to a person who has spent their whole adult life demonizing artificial colors, artificial flavors, and of course sugar.

If only there were Diet Pedialyte(tm)!

That explains my appetite in sweet beverages (which I normally do not drink) when having a hangover.

Same. I'm always really in the mood for orange juice when I'm hungover.

Dehydration causes sugar binges for this reason.

There's many a time, I believe, I've mistaken a loss of appetite control for some "emotional event" when it's been mere dehydration.

I recently traveled for several days without drinking much and sugar binged when getting home. I assumed the travel had stressed me, rather, I was just severely dehydrated.

The article is wrong. I moved my response to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16440309

Would drinking oral rehydration solution mixed with vodka prevent the hangover from occurring in the first place?

Yes, but likely unnecessary. Though unless you're drinking alone you're probably having some salty nuts or other snacks while you drink so really water will be fine. These solutions are for people who are in serious acute dehydration, which you won't be after a night of drinking unless there are other factors.

Simply drinking a large glass of water before going out, and having a glass of water after each alcoholic drink, is a pretty good way to avoid a hangover.

(also the water will help you pee out a lot of toxic crud that your kidneys have kindly removed from your bloodstream for you).

The most effective time to consume oral rehydration solution would be after drinking. Alcohol is a diuretic causing you to lose more water than normal through urine, and eventually also electrolytes (although at first, your body will make an effort to retain them). So if you drink the ORS whilst still in diuresis, it won't have any negative effects, but you're more likely to urinate away the contents. After drinking, but before sleeping is anecdotally the optimal way to use ORS products for the hangover use case.

A lot of the hangover effect comes from acetaldehyde, a somewhat toxic product of the metabolism of alcohol.

A big part of the hangover is waiting for your body to get rid of acetaldehyde. Drinking more reduces your awareness of the effects of acetaldehyde, but increases the total amount of it in your body, prolonging the hangover.

Aldehyde dehydrogenase enzymes employ the sulfur chemistry of cysteine. Taking n-acetyl cysteine before you drink helps your body to synthesize the ALDH. Glutamate (easily available from monosodium glutamate) is required, along with water, for the enzyme to process aldehydes into carboxylic acids. The reaction is powered by NAD+/NADH, so adequate niacin and tryptophan in your diet would help you have enough of that, but that system also powers the alcohol dehydrogenase that is producing the aldehydes.

Whether you get hangovers or not largely depends on the relative efficiency of your ADH versus your ALDH enzymes. If you clear aldehyde faster than you can metabolize the alcohol, you never get hangovers unless you have some odd sulfur-based chemistry happening in your body. If you clear aldehyde slower than you metabolize alcohol, you get hangover effects. If you have an ALDH defect, or are taking a drug that antagonizes it, you might experience "Asian blush", with immediate unpleasant reactions to drinking alcohol.

Dehydration has its own unpleasant symptoms, and since alcohol is a diuretic, it can dehydrate you. Drinking water or electrolyte rehydration solutions will help with that. You can be fully hydrated and still have a hangover, but at least you won't have a hangover and be dehydrated too.

I have never had a hangover, but the chemistry suggests that if you get them routinely, supplementing your diet with NAC might help. Eating tofu and shiitake (high in tryptophan/niacin) with MSG as you drink or after you drink might also help. It's mostly your genetics, though. If you get bad hangovers, there's no easy cure for it other than to drink less alcohol.

... I've done this.

At the start of my bachelor party (and possibly later on that night? It gets blurry) we brought workout hydration powder, the kind you use during and after a gym session. Drank a lot of it ideally to prevent or reduce hangovers.

I have no idea how much it helped, because I was still hungover the next day.

As J_Sherz noted above, hydration before or during drinking isn't very helpful as alcohol is diuretic, so chances are you'll literally be pissing it away. You want to rehydrate afterwards, after you've stopped drinking and when you wake up (during the night if you wake up to piss, and the day after).

I like your thinking. It would help but not prevent it. Sleep deprivation is also a big factor in hangovers.

On the first day after I had my tonsils removed, I thought that maybe using oral rehydration solution at lukewarm temperatures would be less painful than water.

It worked so well that I barely needed any painkillerss during my recovery after that. Quite surprised my doctor didn't suggest it to me though.

I am curious but I suspect the sugar would still be fine to keep a diabetic from entering Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) which occurs from dehydration. this hits particularly close to home as this is what happens to my own mother when she gets sick, she stops drinking and being diabetic it can escalate.

example, while sick and headed to hospital her blood sugar being pass two hundred. This is having only eaten once in three days. Two hours later it hit seven hundred plus in emergency. They got her out of it but the simple reason is, you dehydrate and toxins build up plus your body starts to break down what it can to get sugar.

anyone you know who is diabetic, nah scratch that, proper hydration is key. Take it from the Dune, water is life.

The sugar was the big news to me, as well. I usually use an electrolyte mix if I've been drinking, and it usually works - but there's been some times when it hasn't. I just looked at the formula, and zero sugar.

I'll be adding some sugar to it to see if it improves things.

To make kids drink something...would juice /soda and some type of salty chips or crackers work? They get some sugar and water from the drink and some salt from the crackers, potato chips.

Simply because they are probably more likely to drink and eat that :)

is just salt enough? Or do we need to replenish any other minerals other than Na and Cl (K comes to mind)?

The salt isn't there because you need salt, it's there to optimise absorption of water. This is treatment for H2O deficiency, not anything else.

Huh, interesting, anything i can read on this point? Aka citation please.

The article you are commenting on explains it in great detail.

This seems to explain it.. http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/digestion/smal...

Hmm, that's going to need some study - particularly that the article says osmolarity allows for water to flow down the gradient, but then the final paragraph says that water can flow contrary to the gradient too.

Thanks for the link.

Potassium is also important, whatever mechanism you are losing Sodium (Sweat, urine, diarrhea, vomiting), there's a good chance you're losing Potassium too. Some ORS products also include Zinc because in the developing world it has been shown to reduce the duration and severity of acute and persistent diarrhea. Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11101480