The tendency to experience hangovers appears to decrease as people get older, however this may be because older people do not drink as intensely as younger people, a new study indicates.

According to scientists, many people are familiar with the morning-after symptoms of too much alcohol. However little is known about how hangovers affect people of different ages. They decided to investigate this further.

They analysed health data relating to over 51,000 Danish men and women aged between 18 and 94.

"We found that the tendency to have hangovers decreased by increasing age. This is the only really large population-based study that has included information on hangovers. While there have been tens of thousands of studies on the more direct effects of alcohol, there have only been fewer than 200 published papers on the hangover," they explained.

The scientists noted that overall, younger people tend to binge drink more often than older people, increasing the likelihood for a hangover. However, this did not fully explain the results.

They explained that their study did not assess the intensity of binge drinking, only the frequency, however this is likely to play an important role.

"Given what we know about drinking patterns across the lifespan, it's likely that our younger drinkers' binges would have been of greater intensity, involving more alcohol, than those of our older drinkers, even though the average weekly consumption was about the same. This is one possible explanation of the reduced hangover incidence with increasing age that we found," they said.

They also emphasised that while hangovers are ‘mostly referred to in a humourous way', their effect should not be downplayed.

"Millions of euro are wasted each year due to absence from work caused by hangovers. Also there is some evidence that hangovers, rather then being a natural curb on excessive drinking, may actually be a gateway into alcoholism," they added.

Details of these findings are published in the journal, Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.