Five reasons why hangovers get worse as you get older – and what you can do to reduce the suffering
As we age and the level of enzymes to break down alcohol decreases, it stays in our system longer, and our bodies slow down. The key to pain-free mornings after are moderation, hydration and not mixing with medication
In your 20s or 30s, you might have spent an evening at the pub, knocking back pint after pint followed by a succession of Jagerbombs with barely a hint of a headache the morning after. Now, more than one glass of wine has you clinging to the sofa with a bucket by your side, painkillers in hand. You are not imagining it: your hangovers are getting worse with age and the struggle definitely isn’t just in your head.
Before we look into why hangovers get more complicated as we age, consider what happens when alcohol enters the body. The liver is the main organ responsible for metabolising ingested alcohol, breaking it down with enzymes, first into acetaldehyde, and then into acetic acid (the acid component of vinegar).
In youth, this process is a fairly well-oiled machine. But as we age, levels of the necessary enzymes decrease, acetaldehyde – which is a highly toxic, nasty chemical spends more time in our system, causing headaches, dry mouth, nausea, and a host of other unpleasant symptoms.
Here are five things you need to know before you have another cocktail:
1. Blood alcohol concentration rises
As we age, muscle mass is replaced by fat tissue. This means that an older person who drinks the same amount as someone younger will generally have a higher blood alcohol concentration. Even if you are drinking the recommended eight glasses of water a day, as we get older, our water content decreases. This increases the risk of dehydration as we drink alcohol – a diuretic – but it also means the alcohol remains in a more concentrated form in our system for a longer period of time.