Alcohol intake in adolescents can cause mental disorders

If he alcohol It is already an element of risk for adults, you just have to imagine the effects it would have on adolescents whose bodies are developing. Addiction, problems of liver In the long term, it is a doorway to other more dangerous drugs and even the development of mental disorders in the future.

This has been determined by a study carried out by the Complutense University of Madrid, UCM, which warns that those children who start drinking at younger ages are more at risk of developing "psychiatric diseases"A new warning that shows how dangerous alcohol can be for youth.


More aggressive and hostile

This study started from the basis that those young people who had started in the consumption of alcohol in an age understood between 11 and 13 years old they developed mental problems in the future. Many of them provoke an aggressive and hostile character that can already be glimpsed in the adolescence of these drinkers, an indication that these patients already had a psychopathological symptom.

To concretise this hypothesis, the UCM interviewed a total of 3,696 students university students with ages close to 18 years old and who had to answer a questionnaire related to alcohol consumption. Frequency of these intakes, start in the taking of these drinks, context in which they perform these activities, amount they drink, etc.


Along with this questionnaire, the researchers also asked the participants about Another questions as their level of anxiety, if they had suffered some episode of depression or had some obsessive behavior, phobias, aggressiveness in their personal relationships, level of sensitivity and empathy.

No teetotaler

What stood out most from the result of this questionnaire is that none of the participants declared themselves abstemious, which means that the entire sample had already tested alcohol before the majority of the age. As for the moment in which this consumption began, this investigation proved that those respondents who confessed to having started drinking between 11 and 13 years old, were more willing to suffer some kind of long-term mental disorder.

These same initiated participants at an early age They confessed to suffer often body discomfort, muscular pain and respiratory and intestinal alterations. In addition they also claimed to maintain a more aggressive and hostile behavior with their closest circle. Which translated into a higher level of discussions both in their family environment and with their friends.


More risk of depression in women

The results of this study revealed that the effects of early onset in alcohol have different results in the case of men and women. In the girls it was more common to find some episode of anxiety or depression related to the intake of these drinks. For their part, men were more likely to develop some type of psychopathology related to violent behavior with paranoia.

Enlightening results

According to these researchers, these results do not indicate that in all cases of adolescents who have taken alcohol they end up developing a mental disorder. However, it does show how this type of drinks generates a different behavior between who consumes them and who does not.

In the same way, those responsible for the study explain that this may be the beginning of other investigations that help clarify what happens first, if the consumption of alcohol is what causes these types of mental problems or are these disorders that predispose a person to intake of ethyl drinks.

Damián Montero

Video: Reasons Why Teenagers Drink Alcohol


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