Vegan diet followers suffer more hangovers than non-vegetarians?

The Vegan diet refers to consuming only plant-based food items like leafy vegetables, millets, nuts, and fruits. According to the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, it typically consists of food options that are low in saturated fats and low in cholesterol levels. Vegans strictly abstain from consuming food that is derived from animals. Take a look at the new findings of the vegan diet. 

Why do vegans experience worse hangover than meat-eaters? 

Ever thought that there may be a flip side on following a vegan lifestyle? Here is one such study that was reported just about a few days ago which showcased a surprising result. Although the study was based on a sample size of 13 people with different diets, still the results are something to pay attention to.

The researchers at the Utrecht University in the Netherlands (research was published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine) studied how the vegan and vegetarian diet intakers may suffer from severe hangovers when compared to the non-vegetarians because of the non-availability of two nutrients (nicotinic acid and zinc)(Source: NCBI). 

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All about the research conducted

In the study, 13 social drinkers were monitored for hangover symptoms including headaches, nausea, dizziness, vomiting, heart palpitations, and thirst. The findings revealed that those people whose diet was lacking the two nutrients including Vitamin B3 aka nicotinic acid and Zinc, suffered severe hangover symptoms when compared to others. With Zinc playing an important role in vomiting symptoms (more zinc in the diet leads to less vomiting tendency).

The research was done using the bootstrapping technique as the sample size was small. The connection with this finding and the vegan and non-vegetarian diet intakers is that Vitamin B3 is found in meat, poultry, fish, along with mushrooms, peanuts, and whole grains whereas zinc is most commonly found in meat, eggs, legumes and dairy.

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The takeaway from the research

• The findings proved that the higher dietary intake of nicotinic acid and zinc caused less severe hangovers, although more researches are needed for the same.
• The research also mentioned that even though the dietary nutrients are linked with the hangover effects, yet it still won't affect those people who are already sensitive to hangovers. 
• Even though the vegan diet consists of all the ingredients that are present in non-vegetarian diets but it was seen that the vegan diets generally are deficient in nicotinic acid and zinc than those who consume meat.

Note - The future studies would include more factors in their researches apart from the increase in the sample size, which is elaborate food frequency questionnaires, nutrient-specific dietary intake records for zinc and nicotinic acid,  urine and/or blood assessments for nutrients, and gender differences of this research. (Source: NCBI)

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