BOSTON, July 4 (UPI) -- A new U.S. study finds that drinking in the teen years greatly increases the chances of becoming an alcoholic adult.
Researchers at the Boston University School of Public Health surveyed 43,093 adults. They found that 47 percent of those who began using alcohol by the age of 14 became alcoholics, compared to 9 percent who waited until age 21.
Dr. Aaron White, a Duke University psychiatrist who has studied binge drinking among college students and the effect of alcohol on adolescent rats, told The New York Times said that it is now clear that teenage drinking has a marked effect on adult behavior.
"We definitely didn't know 5 or 10 years ago that alcohol affected the teen brain differently," White said. "Now there's a sense of urgency. It's the same place we were in when everyone realized what a bad thing it was for pregnant women to drink alcohol."
The Boston study, financed by the National Institutes of Health, was published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
