Tag: alcohol

Parents More Likely to Let Teens Sip Alcohol if They Think Friends Drink Too

A study that looks at why parents allow their teens to sip alcohol concludes they are more likely to permit drinking if they think their child’s friends drink, too.

“Parents may be supplying sips of alcohol in response to believing their child will be exposed to unsupervised alcohol use with their peers. However, they may be wrong in their belief, and may be prematurely introducing their children to a behavior that may have marked risks,” researchers write in Pediatrics.

About 60 percent of teens have tasted alcohol by age 13, according to AAP News. The researchers note sipping alcohol may be a stepping stone to additional drinking by underage teens. Parents are a major supplier of alcohol, they found. Drinking by minors is associated with delinquent behavior and poor health, they add.

Full story of parents letting teens drink alcohol at drugfree.org

Americans in Their 20s and 30s Account for Almost Half of U.S. Wine Consumption

Americans in their 20s and 30s account for almost half of the wine consumed in the United States, according to a report from the industry nonprofit Wine Market Council.

The council found Americans ages 21 to 38, known as millennials, drank 42 percent of all wine in the United States in 2015. They drank 159.6 million cases of wine, or an average of two cases per person, according to USA Today.

Millennials made up 30 percent of “high frequency” drinkers, who drink several times per week. High-frequency millennial drinkers consumed 3.1 glasses of wine in one sitting, more than other generations. Two-thirds of frequent drinkers under 30 were women. Among millennials in their 30s, frequent drinkers were split evenly among men and women.

Full story of American’s and wine consumption at drugfree.org

Some E-Cigarettes Contain Enough Alcohol to Affect Motor Skills, Study Finds

Some types of e-cigarettes contain enough alcohol to affect motor skills, a new study concludes. E-cigarettes deliver nicotine by vaporizing liquids, which may contain alcohol and other chemicals.

Yale University researchers tested people who used two commercially available e-cigarettes with either high or low amounts of alcohol. Neither group said they felt differently after they inhaled the vapor. But those who used e-cigarettes with high alcohol levels performed more poorly on psychomotor tests. In some cases, they had detectable levels of alcohol in their urine.

“They didn’t actually know they were under the influence of alcohol,” lead researcher Dr. Mehmet Sofuoglu told CNBC. “It still influenced their performance.”

Full story of e-cigarettes and impacted motor skills at drugfree.org

Report: No Amount of Alcohol Is Safe for Expecting Moms

The American Academy of Pediatrics stated that no amount of alcohol should be viewed as safe throughout pregnancy and called exposure to prenatal alcohol the leading preventable cause of birth defects and intellectual disabilities in children, Today.com reports.

In a report published in the journal Pediatrics, the Academy underscored that drinking during pregnancy can lead to fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), a group of conditions that can occur in a child whose mother consumed alcohol during pregnancy and that drinking-related birth defects and developmental disabilities are avoidable through abstentions.

The Academy noted that prenatal alcohol exposure is linked to higher incidences of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and learning disabilities, such as problems with math and language, memory skills and impulse control.

Full story of alcohol and expecting mothers at drugfree.org

Children Who Sip Alcohol More Likely to Become Teens Who Get Drunk: Study

Children who are allowed to sip alcohol are more likely to drink by the time they reach ninth grade, a new study finds.

Researchers at Brown University found children who had sipped alcohol by the time they were in sixth grade were five times more likely to have a full drink by the time they were in ninth grade, CNN reports. They were four times more likely to binge drink or get drunk, compared with teens who hadn’t sipped alcohol when they were children.

The findings appear in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

Study co-author Kristina Jackson told CNN, “I think the most important thing is to make sure that children know when drinking alcohol is acceptable and when it is not.” She added, “I would say that it is advisable not to offer your child a sip of your beverage, as it may send the wrong message — younger teens and tweens may be unable to understand the difference between drinking a sip and drinking one or more drinks.”

Full story of children sipping alcohol and teen alcoholics at drugfree.org