We've got less muscle, we're dehydrated and we're more sensitive to the ingredients in alcohol.

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It is something the more mature of us have long suspected: hangovers do get worse with age.
And scientists have pinpointed 40 as the milestone at which drinkers begin to suffer more after a heavy night of drinking.
This is because older bodies have swapped alcohol-absorbing muscle for fat, while they also contain less water – which makes dehydration more likely.

Older people are more prone to hangovers than young people because they tend to drink less often as they are more focused on their careers and families

Factor in that many over-40s have lost much of their youthful tolerance to alcohol on a night out, and it is no wonder that the morning after is more painful than in the past.
David Oslin, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania in the US, said: ‘All of the effects of alcohol are amplified with age.’
Body composition changes with age, with muscle, which soaks up alcohol, declining and fat increasing.
Dehydration – a key factor in the thumping headache of a hangover – also plays a role.
Reid Blackwelder, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, told the Wall Street Journal: ‘A lot of older people are borderline dehydrated. 
'They have less body water just from the natural effects of ageing.’
As we get older, the liver finds it harder to break down the toxins in alcohol, meaning chemicals that contribute to hangovers linger.
Finally, older people are more affected by alcohol’s impact on sleep – leading to a mild hangover becoming a massive headache.
We're also more sensitive to the effects of alcohol as we reach middle age because our body composition starts to change from our 30s. 
As well as having less water in our bodies, we often lose muscle mass and develop more fat . Alcohol is not distributed in fat, so people with more fat and less water and muscle mass have more alcohol in their blood.

As people age they sometimes develop sensitivities to the sulphites and tannins in wine meaning they suffer headaches and nausea if they drink

Other changes that occur in the body with age also increase the likelihood of a hangover.
As people reach their 50s, their livers start to get bigger and become less efficient.
The majority of the alcohol people consume is broken down by the liver, meaning they become more sensitive to it as the liver becomes less efficient.
Dr Gary Murray, of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism at the National Institutes of Health, told the WSJ that as people age, their enzyme levels also dip.

Older people are often more sensitive to the effects of alcohol as they are taking medications which impact the body's ability to break it down

Notably, he says, levels of dehydrogenase, which breaks down alcohol fall.
This means alcohol remains in older people’s bodies for longer and they get more of a buzz from each glass - and prolonged painful after-effects.
As we age, we can also become more sensitive to the sulphites and tannins in wine meaning we suffer headaches and nausea after drinking.
Older people are also more likely to be taking medication that increases their sensitivity to alcohol.
As some drugs are metabolised in the liver at the same time as alcohol, they can increase the effects a drink has.
For example, the heartburn drug Zantac interferes with the breaking down of alcohol in the liver, meaning people who take it have higher blood-alcohol levels when they are drinking.
Finally, as people age, their brains become more sensitive to the effects of alcohol.
Dr David Oslin, explained that alcohol increases age-related cognitive decline.
He said:‘[As people age] neurons are not as efficient. So you impair them with a little bit of alcohol, they are that much more inefficient.
‘Somebody who goes to a cocktail party at 65 can have one or two drinks and be really impaired.’

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