New findings confirm concerns about early use.

Data reported in the July 2006 issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine show a stark difference in later-life outcomes between the group of people who begin using alcohol before age 14 and the group who do not begin drinking until age 21 or older. Ralph W. Hingson, ScD, MPH, and colleagues at the Boston University School of Public Health found that 47% of those who began drinking before age 14 became alcohol-dependent at some point in their life, while only 9% of those who began drinking after turning 21 ever developed an alcohol dependence. The Boston University study examined results from face-to-face interviews with 43,000 adults as part of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions in 2001 and 2002.

The analysis also found that individuals who started drinking before age 14 were more likely to experience episodes of dependence of a year or more in duration, and to exhibit at least six dependence symptoms. The researchers say reliance on subject self-reports of age of first use poses a limitation to the findings. They add that future longitudinal studies could help determine whether interventions to delay age of onset could reduce the incidence of alcohol dependence in adulthood.

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