You know the feeling well: you've woken up, your brain is blaring, and you may have thrown up in your friend's bath (but you can't really remember). You definitely had way too much to drink last night, and now all you really want to do is curl up under the kitchen table and forget you were ever alive.

The way to avoid this hangover pain has never really been clear, though. Some people swear by fry-ups and fizzy drinks, whereas others are straight back out and on the hair of the dog. Luckily, science has finally stepped in to give us the solution we've all been waiting for. 

Its answer? ...You're fucked. Sorry. Just try and drink less next time. 

“The only practical way to avoid a hangover is to drink less alcohol,” explains Dr Joris Verster, from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. “Those who took food or water showed a slight statistical improvement in how they felt over those who didn't, but this didn't really translate into a meaningful difference.”

Verster tested 826 Dutch students for the experiment, and found that even having a bit of foresight and drinking water throughout the evening doesn't actually have any real effect. They also monitored 789 Canadian students' blood alchohol levels, and found that the ones who claimed they hadn't experienced hangovers, actually just hadn't drunk enough. 

“In general, we found a pretty straight relationship; the more you drink, the more likely you are to get a hangover,” he continued. “The majority of those who in fact reported never having a hangover tended to drink less – perhaps less than they themselves thought would lead to a hangover.”

So, really, we're left with only one glaring truth: if you drank too much alcohol last night, then there is absolutely no escape from the suffering your body will have to incur today. Sorry.