How Teens are Affected by Alcohol
Most people have already heard the traditional speech about how drinking at a young age is a terrible decision. In drug and alcohol prevention talks, everyone mentions that teens are in their mental and physical developing years. Studies have shown that alcohol is not good for growing bodies. Yet, surprisingly enough, there’s still more to discover about how alcohol can dramatically change a young person’s life. Reuters recently reported on one of these new findings: Early exposure to alcohol may lead to heavy drinking later in life.
The lab study was performed with teenage rats. According to the study, it only took three exposures to alcohol at an adolescent age for the rats to build up a liking for the drink. The rats that were given the most to drink in the beginning went on to become the heavy drinkers.
It’s interesting to note that the study didn’t just test the rodents on their behavior towards alcohol. The scientists also tested the rats to see how they respond to stress and to also determine their “novelty-seeking behavior” level. Surprisingly, rats who liked to try new things weren’t necessarily the ones who became heavy drinkers. According to the tests, stress and a desire for excitement did not correspond with drinking choices and behaviors. One scientist involved with the study said, “This suggests that there are other characteristics that we as scientists should be looking for, that are related to the early experiences of drinking.”
What could those other characteristics be? The future insights will be fascinating to know, and hopefully they will also lead us to additional methods to help impede teen alcoholism.
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May 8th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
I recenlty came across this article about alcohol – it has some great data
http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/article.aspx?id=4484
May 12th, 2008 at 6:26 am
it is really amazing to see how alcoholism and drugs are capturing the minds of teens now -a – days, studies show that every third american id living under the influence on alcohol and drugs, and if this ratio continues, 60% of them will become an addict, we are on the way to earn a dubious distinction of having most no. of addicts in the world
JWP
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This is a comprehensive addiction portal focusing on topics of alcohol and drug abuse. http://www.alcoholaddiction.org
October 30th, 2008 at 9:35 am
drinking is just wrong period i think this information is reallly good because now in days teens r drinking every where in the world n yes its true teens that drink now r more likley to be adicted to alcohol.
December 16th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
[...] are showing that people who start abusing drugs at an early age or as a teenager are more likely to trigger an addiction that can last a [...]
April 15th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
not bad