Main Category: Alcohol / Addiction / Illegal Drugs
Article Date: 16 Feb 2011 - 2:00 PST
"A widely used index for assessing adolescent drinking-related problems has been found to be effective at predicting the future alcohol dependence of teen-age drinkers, according to an Indiana University study which also found that the association was stronger for adolescent female drinkers.
"The federally funded study, available now online in advance of print in the journal "Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research," involved 597 Finnish twins -- 300 male and 297 female -- who were assessed at ages 18 and 25."
"The key finding was that the more drinking-related problems experienced by an adolescent at age 18, the greater the likelihood that adolescent would be diagnosed with alcoholism seven years later at age 25," said Richard Rose, professor emeritus at IU's Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and senior author of the article. "That predictive association was stronger in females than males. The analysis of co-twins ruled out factors such as parental drinking and household atmosphere as the source of the association, because twins jointly experience these."
"http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/216581.phpRose and his colleagues used the Rutgers Alcohol Problem Index (RAPI) to assess the twins at age 18. Seven years later they interviewed the twins using the Semi-Structured Assessment of the Genetics of Alcoholism to determine any alcohol abuse and dependent diagnoses."
" . . . The researchers were surprised by the strength of the association between RAPI scores and later alcohol dependence, in females as well as in males, and in co-twins who differ in drinking but share their childhood environments and half or all of their segregating genes . . . " Read More
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