When someone is drunk, they are advised to drink strong tea, believing that strong tea can sober them up. So, can strong tea really sober you up? What kind of tea is good for sobering up? Can strong tea sober you up?
Folk wisdom holds that drinking too much alcohol can be countered by drinking tea, usually strong tea. So, is there any basis for this?
Relevant experts state that drinking a lot of tea can increase urination, thereby flushing some alcohol out of the body, which is beneficial for reducing alcohol poisoning. Additionally, drinking tea can help clear the mind, achieving a sobering effect. In reality, drinking strong tea not only fails to sober you up but can also cause adverse physical reactions.
Alcohol contains ethanol, which is a significant irritant to the cardiovascular system. After a person drinks alcohol, ethanol enters the body and has an exciting and stimulating effect on the nervous system, which can lead to a faster heartbeat, blood vessel dilation, and accelerated blood flow. Especially when a person is drunk, this stimulating effect intensifies and turns into a harmful one. The theophylline and caffeine in tea also have a heart-accelerating effect. Drinking strong tea to sober up after being drunk is like adding fuel to the fire for the heart. It accelerates the heartbeat, increases the burden on the heart, and instead produces an unhealthy effect, achieving the opposite of the desired result.
Furthermore, it is important to note that drinking a large amount of strong tea after being drunk is also harmful to the kidneys. This is mainly because most of the alcohol in the body is converted into acetaldehyde in the liver, then into acetic acid, and finally broken down into carbon dioxide and water, which are excreted by the kidneys. The theophylline in strong tea has a rapid diuretic effect on the kidneys, which promotes the entry of undecomposed acetaldehyde into the kidneys prematurely, thereby causing damage to kidney function.