People who start drinking after young adulthood are less likely to become binge drinkers, according to a study from the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Berkeley, CA.

Dr. Marcia Russell and her colleagues used data from a five-year study in New York. They found that risks are lower for people who start drinking after age 21 years and who drink only in moderation.

"Drinking patterns associated with early peak and stable drinking trajectories were distinctly different," she wrote. "Early drinkers drank fewer years, less frequently and consumed less volume of alcohol over their lifetimes but they averaged more drinks per drinking day and had higher rates of episodic heavy drinking and intoxication."

This study appears in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

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Labels: addiction, binge_drinking, research