Why do some people think coffee can cure a hangover?”
Gulping down coffee won’t sober you up if you’re drunk, but it may make you awake enough to be dangerous, new research suggests. Researchers draw that conclusion from laboratory experiments on mice, in which caffeine made drunken rodents more alert but didn’t reverse learning problems caused by alcohol. Their study is published in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience. “The myth about coffee’s sobering powers is particularly important to debunk because the co-use of caffeine and alcohol could actually lead to poor decisions with disastrous outcomes,” Thomas Gould, PhD, of Temple University and one of the study authors, says in a news release. “People who have consumed only alcohol, who feel tired and intoxicated, may be more likely to acknowledge that they are drunk.” Gould tells WebMD in an email that “coffee may reduce the sedative effects of alcohol, which could give the false impression that people are not as intoxicated as they really are.” But caffeine’s effect as a stimulant may c
