Many older people report being unable to bounce back from a night of drinking as quickly as they did when they were younger. And there's a reason for that: science.
Researchers told NBC News that many factors contribute to the fact that hangovers get worse with age. One, they say, is that the liver's capacity to cope with the toxicity of acetaldehyde decreases as people grow older. Acetaldehyde is directly detoxified in the liver by an antioxidant called glutathione. "Our data indicated that, as age increases, glutathione generation capacity is decreased, so cells may not be recovered or repaired rapidly," a toxicology researcher in South Korea named Young Chul Kim told NBC News.
NBC News also reported that older people are more likely to be on various medicines that may impact the effect of alcohol and that they also are more likely to have experienced changes in body size that can make hangovers worse.
For more on this research, watch the video above.
The report does, however, run contrary to a study out of Denmark released earlier this year that actually found older people to be less likely than younger ones to complain of a hangover after a night of drinking.
Yet another study released earlier this summer pinpointed the precise age at which people suffer the worst hangovers: 29. That study claimed that, as people neared the age of 30, they may still drink with the carelessness they had in their 20s even though they don't boast the same stamina.
What do you think? Do hangovers get worse -- or better -- with age?
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