EVERYTHING’S gone fuzzy, the room’s spinning and all too soon you’ve hit the
floor. The effects of standing up after too many beers are familiar enough, but
what causes them?
Virend Somers, a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, now
has part of the answer. He suspected that keeling over was linked to changes in
blood pressure. Standing up makes blood pressure drop, drunk or sober. In a
sober person, blood vessels immediately respond by constricting, which brings
the pressure back to normal and keeps the brain supplied with blood.
If alcohol blocked this reflex, Somers reasoned, the…
