eli5: Why do hangovers get worse with age?
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It’s your body telling you that the poison your ingesting willingly is getting harder to deal with.
Literally mine have gotten easier to deal with. I have mild nausea, drink some water, and am good to go. Dunno why that is.
MD here. Your body becomes less able to deal with the stress alcohol puts on the body over time. Alcohol causes something called oxidative stress, and also dehydration by acting directly on a part of the brain called the hypothalamus. In addition, as you age, the protective layer of mucus in the stomach is less effective, and alcohol can cause injury to the lining of the stomach. In fact, any part of the body that alcohol touches can become irritated or inflamed. The mouth all the way to the intestines, the throat, etc. It is also my understanding that alcohol consumption can cause low blood sugar because it depletes a compound called NAD+ which is necessary in the body to produce sugar from other compounds, which the brain may be more sensitive to at old age.
The enzymes breaking down alcohol are less effective with age. https://www.nbcnews.com/healthmain/why-do-hangovers-seem-so-much-worse-we-get-older-1c9386920
TIL alcohol is carcinogenic- why doesn’t this have to be declared on packaging?
ELI5 – what if I’m old an don’t get hangovers?!
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I’m 49. For me it’s all about the sugar. My beer/shot hangovers were getting worse and worse, with one exception: there is a beer called Yeungling, oldest brewery in America, in Pennsylvania. Never got hungover from it. Turns out, it’s also the one with the least sugar. Once I switched, hangovers were gone.
Then, I moved to the West Coast, where Yeungling isn’t available. Now, I have to drink seltzers. Think White Claw-type shit. Not my favorite, but no hangover is worth it.
Why does a car degrade over time? Imagine that but you can’t replace the car parts (well you can but you get my drift)
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