A University of Washington study has found that people who began binge drinking at age 13 and continued throughout adolescence were nearly four times as likely to be overweight or obese and almost 3½ times as likely to have high blood pressure when they were 24 years old than were people who never or rarely drank heavily during adolescence.
It also found four distinct patterns or trajectories of binge drinking among teenagers.
The study looked at young adult health consequences of adolescent binge drinking -- consuming five or more drinks on a single occasion -- between the ages of 13 and 18. Previous research has shown that adolescent binge drinking results in a number of immediate negative consequences, including involvement in fatal or injurious automobile accidents and engaging in risky sexual behavior. But little had been known about the effects of adolescent heavy drinking into young adulthood.
"In our analysis, we did look at whether people were currently binge drinking at age 24. We controlled for it, along with other factors, such as adolescent drug use, ethnicity, gender and family poverty, and we still saw different patterns of health outcomes depending on which trajectory of binge drinking teenagers followed," said Karl Hill, a co-author of the study and director of the Seattle Social Development Project.
"It is the pattern of early and on-going drinking that is the key."
The research team from the UW's Social Development Research Group in the School of Social Work found four categories of adolescent binge drinking. They are:
- Chronic binge drinkers (3 percent), who started at age 13 and continued to binge drink between three and five times a month through age 18.
- Escalators (4 percent), who began drinking around age 15 and their bingeing increased sharply and continuously until they were binge drinking nearly 10 times monthly by age 18.
- Late onsetters (23 percent), who started drinking after age 16 and averaged two bingeing episodes a month by age 18.
- Non-binge drinkers (70 percent) never or rarely engaged in binge drinking between ages 13 and 18.
The study used data from the on-going Seattle Social Development Project led by the UW's J. David Hawkins of more than 800 Seattle school children who are now adults. The participants were nearly equally divided between males and females. Forty-seven percent identified themselves as white, 23 percent as black, 21 percent as Asian-Americans, 6 percent as American Indians and 3 percent as being from another ethnic or racial group.
The participants were interviewed annually starting at age 13 through age 16 and again at ages 18, 21 and 24. They were asked about their alcohol, tobacco and drug use. At 24 they were asked about such health-related behaviors as safe driving, use of seat belts in automobiles and regular exercise. In addition, they had their blood pressure checked twice and were questioned about having any of 18 illnesses or health conditions, including asthma or emphysema, high blood pressure, arthritis, diabetes, cancer and heart disease, in the past year.