A week later, the participants came back to the study site to perform the drinking task again, but participants in groups one and two were switched to the opposite drinking order. (Those who consumed beer first on the initial visit consumed wine first on the second visit, and vice versa.) Participants in the third group who drank only beer on the first visit drank only wine on the second visit, and vice versa. This way, the researchers could compare the reactions of each individual to the same person’s earlier experience. (In other words, each person served as their own “control.”

The researchers found that participants in all three groups had similar hangover scores.

“Unfortunately, we found that there was no way to avoid the inevitable hangover just by favouring one order over another,” senior study author Dr. Kai Hensel, a senior clinical fellow at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, said in the statement.