Thursday, December 07, 2006

Study: Early drinking, smoking lead to alcohol problems

San Diego, CA: A study of more than 40,000 Marine recruits concluded that men who had their first alcoholic drink at age 13 or under, or who were smokers, were significantly more likely to have drinking problems at age 18-20.

Sylvia Y. N. Young, M.D., M.P.H., of the Naval Health Research Center, San Diego, lead author, wrote that "After early age at first alcohol use, the factor most strongly associated with risky drinking was tobacco use." The study is published in the December issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. A news report is here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The findings of this research make sense. What doesn't make sense, however, is that we have young children in our society who are not even teenagers yet starting to drink alcohol. This is shocking!