Alcohol-related disorders: adolescent smokers at greater risk than other
,
Adolescent smokers present a higher
risk of developing alcohol-related problems compared to adolescents
non-smokers, possibly because of a higher vulnerability to drugs, suggests a
study published in the journal "Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental
Research ".
The link between tobacco consumption
and that alcohol has long been known in popular belief and has been confirmed
in clinical studies. However, it is not clear whether smokers have a higher
risk of alcohol-related problems due to greater vulnerability to addiction or
just due to a higher consumption of alcohol.
To resolve this issue, Richard
Grucza Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Washington University (St.
Louis, USA), and colleagues conducted a study of 74,836 adolescents and young
adults, aged 12 to 20 years. The volunteers underwent psychiatric tests alcohol
dependence, reported alcohol consumption the last 30 days and consumption of
cigarettes in the past year.
According to their results, smokers
(16%) have consumed higher amounts of alcohol than non-smokers. But they also
showed a 4.5 times higher risk of developing alcohol-related problems compared
to non-smokers consuming the same amount of alcohol. This effect was
particularly true among younger adolescents. "For example, among
adolescent smokers, aged between 15 and 17 years, who consumed less than eight
glasses of alcoholic beverage per month, more than 20% experienced problems
associated with alcohol against only 5% among non-smokers with similar
consumption, "said lead author of the study in a statement released by the
university online.
"It seems that smoking makes
the adolescent brain more vulnerable to other addictive products," offers
Richard Grucza. "Such studies are sounding the alarm especially to those
who still consider tolerable smoking among young people," said Kevin Chen,
associated with the University of Maryland professor in the press.
These results confirm the increased
vulnerability to alcohol-related disorders among adolescent smokers, compared
to non-smokers consuming the same amount of alcohol, the authors conclude
Author: Mohammad
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