This is why your hangovers get worse as you get older

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It’s the end of the week and by now we all have that Friday feeling, eager to get down to the pub and feel the sweet, cold relief of our favorite drink to kick off the weekend.

But with boozing comes the inevitable hangover.

While you were young you seemed to bounce back fine and chirpily go about your Saturday morning, but now you find yourself lazily spending your morning recovering from the dreaded headache, painkillers in hand.

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The good news is, your struggle isn’t just in your head.

Hangovers do actually get worse as you get older, and here’s why.

You don’t have as many liver enzymes anymore

Your liver is a pretty important organ when it comes to drinking.

Alcohol is a toxicant, so your body has to break it down and get rid of the toxic parts – that is where the liver comes in.

Your liver has to break the toxin, ethanol, into something it can digest, called acetaldehyde.

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The enzymes are responsible for this.

This work’s fairly well when you are young because you have more enzymes, but they decrease when you get older making that hangover seem worse and worse.

For every drink – glass of wine or a pint of beer – it takes your body about an hour for your body to process it.

The recovery process of your body is weaker

It’s the same old (pardon the pun) reason again – age.

As we get older, our bodies begin to slow down.

You may have noticed it in your joints or muscles but it actually happens internally too.

That means it is harder to fight of a cold virus or other illnesses and, yes, a heavy night of drinking.

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George F. Koob, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism told the Huffington Post: “As one gets older metabolism changes; also neuroplasticity ― the ability of neuronal function to bounce back ― is thought to slow.”

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