Daily HealthBeat Tip

Early problems, young drinkers

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Teen drinking means trouble. And a study finds that for some teens, the more trouble in their lives, the younger their drinking starts.

Researcher Samuel Kuperman of the University of Iowa compared the age at which young people had their first drink to the number of problems in their lives.

"Stealing, setting fires, destroying property, using weapons, fighting, cruelty to people – symptoms like that decreased the age of first drink by about three months for each positive symptom." (12 seconds)

Kuperman's study, which was supported by the National Institutes of Health, was in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Kuperman says that, for these kids, a lot of bad things are happening, and the age of first drink is just one. But he says there's still hope for the teens, parents and schools to turn things around.

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: February 1, 2006

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