Drinking in adolescence may lead to alcoholism in adulthood

Teenagers are known to overindulge in alcohol, but new research has found that drinking at an early age can carry over into adulthood. Jim McCambridge from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine recently published a study in the PLoS Medicine journal, citing data linking drinking in adolescence to alcoholism in the future.

McCambridge and his colleagues discovered that preventing underage drinking can not only reduce health complications during the teenage years, but later in life as well. The experts looked at 54 studies that examined how alcohol consumption influenced adults in a variety of ways, ranging from criminal offenses to mental health problems. McCambridge found that people who drank in late adolescence were more likely to develop an alcohol dependency in adulthood.

Despite the trends discovered in the research, experts acknowledged that some of the 54 studies were poorly designed. McCambridge and his colleagues said that more research needs to be conducted in this area of study.

The 2009 Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that 24 percent of high school students had engaged in binge drinking within a 30-day period, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Drug rehab programs can help individuals who are dependent on alcohol.