’Tis the season to be sorry. At least for some of us.

Tonight, of course, is New Year’s Eve. It’s a time for festive celebration, auld lang syne and all that.

Tomorrow, for the incautious and intemperate, is the day of reckoning — of epic headache and vertigo, creeping nausea and a passing desire to shuffle off this mortal coil. By then, it will be too late to check the medical literature.

That’s right, the medical literature. Many people view medical research as a lofty pursuit far removed from our everyday concerns. But there is a vast and growing body of scientific evidence on the chemical causes, measurement and management of the common hangover.

A quick search for “hangover” in PubMed, the on-line medical journal database of the National Library of Medicine, reveals 19 pages of results.

Some of the articles use rats to study the effects of hangover. A surprisingly large number use female college students.

Young women, for instance, were the subjects in the famous (to us, anyway) “beer goggles” study. It found that the more young women drink, the worse they are at detecting facial symmetry. Facial symmetry, of course, is a predictor of beauty. Thus, the more a young woman drinks, the less likely she is to detect that her date’s face could stop a truck.

Other studies provide useful genetic research, such as the discovery that some Asians have a mutation in the aldehyde dehydrogenase gene. It makes them less likely to drink or become alcoholics.

Then there is some proud home-state research: Scientists at the University of Missouri-Columbia developed something called the Hangover Symptoms Scale, so studies could be standardized. “On average, participants experienced 5 out of 13 different hangover symptoms in the past year,” the researchers discovered. “The three most common symptoms were feeling extremely thirsty/dehydrated, feeling more tired than usual and headache.”

And then there’s a study from Duh University — England’s Keele University, actually — that found “there is empirical evidence showing impaired performance as a result of the alcohol hangover.”

Hangovers cost the United States $148 billion a year, according to one study, or about $2,000 per working adult. Hangover increases the risk of suffering a fatal heart attack or, as the authors note, just wishing you had.

Many studies evaluate supposed hangover cures, which range from artichoke extract to kudzu root to an herbal preparation sold in India called “PartySmart.” A few of those cures seem to work, but you have to take them before you imbibe.

Because alcohol dehydrates, many doctors recommend drinking lots of water on the morning after. Better to drink plenty of water instead of alcohol the night before and take to heart Isaiah 5:11: “Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink.”