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Drinking by Young Teens May Set Stage for Addiction
September 25, 2009

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Research Summary

Brain changes caused by drinking before age 15 could predispose adolescents to a lifetime of alcohol dependency, HealthDay News reported Sept. 18.

Researcher Arpana Agrawal of the Washington University School of Medicine, who studied alcohol use among twins, said that early drinking "may induce changes in the highly sensitive adolescent brain, which may also modify an individual's subsequent genetic vulnerability" to addiction.

Agrawal found that age of first alcohol use corresponded with a greater number of alcohol dependency symptoms. Those who started drinking later in life were less likely to be dependent even if they were genetically predisposed to addiction, the study found.

The research will be published in the December 2009 issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.
This article summarizes an external report or press release on research published in a scientific journal. When available, links to the sources are provided above.

COMMENTS ON THIS ARTICLE:

Posted by Anonymous on 26 Sep 09 12:30 PM EDT
Also relevant is how early drinking predestines children to nicotine addiction. Especially through the probable effort to use cigarettes to self-medicate out of a binge-drinking hangover to handle school assignments or stay up late studying for a test.

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