New research suggests that individuals who begin drinking alcohol as teenagers are more likely than those who start drinking after age 21 to suffer alcohol-related harm as adults.

Reuters reported June 5 that researchers Ralph Hingson and Wenxing Zha from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) found that adults who began drinking at age 16 or younger drove drunk, suffered unintentional injuries, and became dependent on alcohol at about twice the rate as those whose onset of drinking occurred at age 21 years or older.

The findings were published online May 26, 2009 in the journal Pediatrics.