How to look after your liver during freshers’ week

Eat before you go out

Food slows down the rate at which alcohol is absorbed into your bloodstream^. Making sure you 'line your stomach' before drinking alcohol prevents you from getting drunk too quickly, helps maintain blood sugar levels, and reduces the chance of getting a hangover¹.

The best choices are foods that release energy slowly – go for a mixture of protein and carbs, such as chicken or fish and pasta or potatoes.

Avoid pre-drinking

It’s tempting to drink before you go out to save money, but the danger is you’ll get drunk quickly and could miss out on most of the evening. Ideally, avoid ‘pre-drinking’ altogether but if you do it, choose a long drink such as beer. Give hand-poured spirits a miss too, as it’s easy to drink far more than you realise.

Know your units

Keeping tabs on how much you’re drinking is a good habit to get into. Adults should drink no more than two to three units a day, which amounts to one pint of standard-strength (5%) lager, beer or cider, or two to three single pub measures (25ml) of spirits, or one medium to large glass of 12% ABV (alcohol by volume) wine.

The weekly units for men and women is 14 units². It’s also recommended that you have at least two to three dry days a week.

You can use our alcohol units calculator to work out how many units are in your drinks.

Beware of bingeing

While alcohol-free days are important, it’s a bad idea to save up your units for one or two days. A report by the Department of Health found that drinking between five and seven units in one session raises the risk of accidents and injuries between two to five times³.

Binge drinking also lowers your inhibitions and judgment, putting you at greater risk of danger, and over time it can affect mood and memory. The worst-case scenario is alcohol poisoning, which is potentially fatal.

Pace yourself

It takes up to an hour for your body to process one unit of alcohol, so make your drinks last. Choose long drinks over shots, and drink water either alongside or between alcoholic drinks. This will slow down your drinking and keep you hydrated, helping to fend off tomorrow’s hangover. Or simply go for a soft drink.

Avoid big rounds

Not only are they expensive, but you’ll end up keeping pace with the fastest drinker. Everyone metabolises alcohol at a different rate too, depending on their gender and size⁴. So if you’re a nine stone woman, don’t try to keep up with a 13 stone man.

This isn’t sexist – it’s medical fact! The body holds alcohol in water, and because women have proportionally less water than men their blood alcohol levels become more concentrated.

Pick events wisely

If you’re not interested in drinking, a pub crawl is an obvious no-no but there are lots of arts and activity-based events to attend. You could also try a night out at an alcohol-free bar – there are a number of ‘dry bars’ now in big cities such as London, Manchester, Nottingham and Liverpool.

Resist peer pressure

Many universities have banned alcohol-fuelled initiation rites to clubs and societies, some of which have resulted in the deaths of students due to alcohol poisoning or accidents. But drinking games still go on.

If you’re not comfortable with something, don’t do it. It’s your body and being responsible for your own actions is part of being an adult. In the long run, most people will respect you more for standing your ground, and you won’t end up untagging yourself from embarrassing photos on social media.

If they don’t, find some new friends – there’s probably plenty of people feeling just the same way you do.

Further reading

1. Ramsbottom et al: Food as harm reduction during a drinking session

2. Gov.uk: Delivering better oral health - chapter 12 alcohol

3. Department of Health: Alcohol guidelines review

4. Drink Aware: Alcohol and women