Is it true that … you can sweat out a hangover?

It’s the liver – not the skin – that rids the body of the toxins in alcohol, but exercise can help manage the symptoms

Here’s a useful fact to quote to any smug relatives who say they went for a run the morning after their Christmas party: you can’t get rid of toxins by sweating. “Toxins” is a broad term, says Adam Taylor, professor of anatomy at Lancaster Medical School, covering anything that can damage the body – from heavy metals to chemicals found in plastics, as well as the normal byproducts of our own metabolism. The liver is designed to process the toxins in alcohol and either break them down into usable units or get rid of them. The waste products are then filtered from the blood and excreted in urine or stools.

Sweat, on the other hand, has a very different job. Although it can contain extremely small amounts of some metabolic byproducts, its purpose is temperature regulation (and, in some situations, to signal stress or fear). “Sweating is not the means to remove toxins,” says Taylor. “Going for a run or sitting in a sauna after a night of drinking won’t reduce the toxins produced by metabolising alcohol, and it won’t lower your blood alcohol level.”