Source: Reuters Pubdate: 14 Jan 1998 Author: Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent YOUNG START TO DRINKING PREDICTS ALCOHOLISM - REPORT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The younger children or teenagers are when they start to drink, the more likely they are to become alcoholics, government researchers said on Wednesday. They said the unexpected findings were yet another reason to keep alcohol away from children. ``The younger kids start drinking, the more likely they will develop alcohol dependence at some time in their lives,'' said Bridget Grant, who led the study by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Children who started drinking before the age of 15 were four times more likely to become alcoholics, formally known as alcohol dependent, as those who started at 21. The risk that a person would abuse alcohol was doubled in people who started drinking before 15 compared to those who waited until the current legal drinking age of 21. ``These are whopping statistics and a very strong association,'' Grant told a news conference. The effect held strong when factors like sex, race, age, duration of drinking and family history were accounted for, Grant said. The volunteers were not asked how much and how often they drank. ``Some people will say didn't we know this? Well, we didn't know this,'' said Dr. Enoch Gordis, director of the NIAAA. A 13-year-old who has started drinking has a 28 percent chance of becoming an alcoholic if there is no family history of alcohol abuse. Among 13-year-olds with a family history of alcohol problems the risk is 58 percent, with an average risk of 43 percent for all 13-year-olds. This drops dramatically to about 10 percent of people who started to drink at 21. ``At this point we can't tell you the reasons. We can only speculate on what they might be,'' Gordis added. ``One possibility is the later you start, the less time you have to establish a habit of drinking before protective mechanisms kick in, such as your first job.'' Or the young brain may be more susceptible to the influence of alcohol, he added. Dr. Mary Dufour, deputy director of the NIAAA, said many underage children drank. ``Alcohol is America's No. 1 drug of choice,'' Dufour said. ''In 1987 nearly half of eighth graders...said they had used alcohol sometime in their lives,'' she added. ``These numbers scare me.'' The NIAAA researchers took information from 43,000 people surveyed face-to-face by the U.S. Census Bureau. Among the questions in the 110-page survey were queries about when a person first started drinking -- excluding the occasional sip or taste as part of family or religious events. They said the margin of error was very low -- less than three percent. They cited statistics showing alcohol abuse among the young was associated with risky sex, leading to teen-age pregnancy and exposure to the HIV virus that causes AIDS. It was also strongly linked with violence, depression and suicide. ``The main reason for prevention is that it's a disaster in the young, independent of this issue,'' Gordis said. ``We need to be vigorous in our enforcement of laws that are meant to protect young people from access to alcohol,'' Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala said in a statement. ''And we need to avoid glamorization of drinking, including misleading linkages between sports and alcohol.'' Grant said other countries such as France and Italy, where drinking was accepted at younger ages, were experiencing similar problems with alcohol abuse.