Adults who abused alcohol as teenagers report feeling dissatisfied and unhealthy in middle age – VCU News

as if Mary Kate Brogan

Adolescent alcohol abuse is a contributor to poorer life satisfaction and health outcomes, according to a new study led by Virginia Commonwealth University and Rutgers University.

The researchers found that their study “Exploring the relationship between adolescent alcohol abuse and later life health outcomesIt was published in Alcoholism: clinical and experimental research Found this month:

• High rates of adolescent alcohol abuse are associated with youth alcohol problems.
• Participants’ drinking problems in their 20s were associated with alcohol struggles in their 30s.
• These drinking behaviors were associated with poor physical health and low life satisfaction.

The findings, researchers say, show that teenage drinking has indirect effects on physical health and life outcomes in middle age and highlight the need for preventive strategies for better long-term health.

“Understanding these long-term effects will further our understanding of interventions during adolescence that may prevent or prevent long-term negative health consequences,” said Angela Pascal, the study’s first author and student. in the Ph.D. in health psychology program at VCU’s College of Humanities and Sciences.

Unlike other studies that directly affect adolescent alcohol abuse later in life, Pascal and co-author Jessica Salvatore, PhD, associate professor at Rutgers University and formerly at VCU, said. , and their coauthors found that adolescent drinking has indirect, rather than direct, effects on long-term physical health and life satisfaction.

“Although we saw these effects, they were modest, adolescent alcohol abuse is not the only cause of later physical health and life dissatisfaction,” Pascal said, noting that alcohol-related problems may also play a role.

In addition, studies of adolescent alcohol abuse often look at health outcomes in the years after teens are studied, Pascal said.

“This study is unique in that it seeks to determine whether the consequences of poor physical health continue beyond the 20s,” Pascale said. “Our findings indicate that drinking during adolescence and its consequences are evident at several developmental stages two decades later.”

Researchers looked at the frequency of drinking, frequency of drinking, and alcohol problems among adolescents aged 16, 17, and 18.5 years. Predicted midlife outcomes included life satisfaction, physical symptoms, and self-rated health at age 34.

Using questionnaires from 2,733 pairs of twins born in Finland in the late 1970s, the study controlled for both nature and nurture variables – shared genetics and shared upbringing.

“The longitudinal twin design is particularly useful for elucidating whether there are confounding family factors that predispose a person to abuse alcohol during adolescence and later develop physical health and well-being in middle age,” Salvatore said. “This is because the twin design allows us to compare exposures and outcomes over time within the same family.”

“The findings—especially the findings that were consistent even after controlling for genetic and environmental factors shared by twin siblings—underscore the importance of reducing adolescent alcohol abuse and health consequences into adulthood,” said Pascal.

Study authors Pascal, Salvatore, and colleagues: Mallory Stephenson Department of psychology at VCU; Peter Barr, PhD, SUNY Downstate University of Health Sciences; Richard Viken, Ph.D., and Richard J. Rose, PhD, Indiana University; Antti Latvala, PhD, Sari Aaltonen, PhD, Maarit Piertola, PhD, Jakko Caprio, MD, PhD, of the University of Helsinki, who led the Finnish twin cohort study; Hermine Mace, Ph.D., of Virginia Institute of Psychiatry and Behavioral Genetics at VCU; and Danielle M. Dick, Ph.D., Rutgers University, also formerly of VCU.

This study was supported by grants from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, part of the National Institutes of Health, and the Academy of Finland.