How to treat hangovers

January 6, 2026

The main idea: Drink ORS

Much of the pain of a hangover is caused by dehydration. To treat dehydration, you should drink oral rehydration solution (ORS) instead of plain water.

ORS is water with glucose and electrolytes in amounts designed to improve fluid absorption in the gut. It can taste surprisingly salty at first, but you get used to it quickly.

You can buy pre-mixed packets or make a similar recipe at home.

ORS is also useful for treating dehydration from other causes, like intense exercise or diarrhea.

What’s in ORS

The World Health Organization calls for ORS to have the following composition:

  • Sodium (75 mmol/L). Sodium is the main electrolyte outside of cells, and its concentration dictates water movement. It’s lost in sweat and diarrhea and must be replaced.
  • Glucose (75 mmol/L). SGLT1, one of the main intestinal proteins involved in sodium absorption, requires glucose to function. In the diarrheal diseases for which ORS was originally designed (e.g. cholera), SGLT1 is one of the few sodium absorption routes that remain functional and thus glucose is absolutely crucial to rehydration. SGLT1 function is relatively less crucial for rehydration following alcohol consumption, but it’s still better to have.
  • Chloride (65 mmol/L). Chloride is lost in sweat (as sodium chloride) and in vomit (as hydrochloric acid).
  • Potassium (20 mmol/L). Potassium is lost in vomit and diarrhea.
  • Citrate (10 mmol/L). Citrate corrects the acidosis that occurs as a result of diarrhea and dehydration.

This recipe results in a hypotonic fluid with a total osmolality of 245 mOsm/L (below the 290 mOsm/L of blood and extracellular fluid). Hypotonicity helps drive osmotic absorption of water in the intestine.

Comparison to alternatives

In my personal testing of hangover treatments, I’ve found ORS to be the best, Pedialyte to be quite good, Liquid IV to be decent, and Gatorade and water to be terrible.

It’s not hard to see why if we compare their respective sugar and electrolyte concentrations. Keep in mind that the goal is to have enough sodium and glucose to drive SGLT1, while keeping the overall solute concentration low to facilitate the ensuing osmosis.

Fluid Sodium (g/L) Potassium (g/L) Chloride (g/L) Sugar (g/L)
ORS 1.7 0.8 2.3 14
Pedialyte 1.1 0.8 1.2 13
Liquid IV1 1.1 0.8 1.4 23
Gatorade1 0.5 0.1 0.4 58
Water 0 0 0 0
Seawater 11 0.4 19 0

Complementary techniques

Dehydration isn’t the whole story. Other contributors include:

  • Poor sleep. Alcohol fragments sleep. Hydrating before bed helps avoid waking up thirsty.
  • Acetaldehyde. During metabolism, alcohol is oxidized to acetaldehyde by the enzyme ADH and then to acetate by ALDH. The intermediate product, acetaldehyde, is toxic.2 I have heard good things about ZBiotics, a probiotic that supposedly helps your body break down acetaldehyde, but I haven’t tested it myself.
  • Inflammation. Advil and Tylenol can help, but both come with potential downsides. Advil can irritate the stomach, especially after alcohol, and Tylenol can overwhelm an already-loaded liver.
  • Gastritis. Antacids are the obvious treatment, but I don’t have experience with them in this context.

  1. Liquid IV and Gatorade are a little hard to compare to the others because they supply some of their sugar as sucrose, whereas ORS and Pedialyte only have glucose. SGLT1 specifically requires glucose to function, but sucrose is a disaccharide that can be broken down into glucose and fructose. For the purposes of rehydration, the difference is probably small. ↩︎ ↩︎

  2. People with the ALDH2 mutation (common in East Asians) are less efficient at processing acetaldehyde and experience “alcohol flush”. ↩︎