Smoking May Boost Problem Drinking in Teens

Nicotine could put young brains on track for alcoholism, study suggests.

By Rick Ansorge
HealthDay Reporter
Wednesday, November 29, 2006; 12:00 AM

Copyright © 2006 ScoutNews LLC. All rights reserved.

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 29 (HealthDay News) -- Smoking may prime the adolescent brain to be more vulnerable to alcoholism and other addictions, a new study suggests.

"The younger they start smoking, the more their brains appear to be more susceptible to other addictions," said study co-author Richard Grucza, an epidemiologist at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "So, the longer we can delay these behaviors, the better."

The findings are published in the December issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

"Everybody knows that smokers, especially in adolescence, have a higher likelihood of alcohol problems and dependence," Grucza said. "We wanted to see if that was solely attributable to the fact that they drink more than nonsmokers do or if the story was more complicated."

Grucza and a colleague reviewed survey data on the smoking and drinking practices of nearly 75,000 subjects aged 12-20, collected from 2002-2004 by the U.S. National Surveys on Drug Use and Health.

Compared to adolescent nonsmokers who drink alcohol, they found that adolescent smokers have more than a 50 percent higher risk of an alcohol-use disorder -- anything from alcohol abuse and dependence to alcohol-related trouble with the law.

The researchers also found that the smokers' risk of an alcohol-related disorder is elevated even when they drink the same amount of alcohol as nonsmokers, and that the risk is especially high among younger smokers and lighter drinkers. Among 15- to 17-year-olds who drank fewer than eight drinks a month, the prevalence of an alcohol problem was 20 percent in smokers, compared to only 5 percent in nonsmokers.

"This study provides additional important evidence that both smoking and drinking behaviors among U.S. youth are serious epidemics and also pediatric diseases -- ones increasingly understood as having origins and roots in early life behaviors and conditions," said Dr. Elissa Weitzman, of the Harvard School of Public Health, who was not part of the study. "Smoking and drinking present a troubling nexus of interacting risks. Use of one is a good indication that use and abuse of the other may be present, too," she said.