There is a new brain study making the headlines these days. This study examined postmortem brains of three groups of people: 1) 11 people with alcohol use disorders (AUD) who began drinking consistently before age 21, 2) 11 people with AUD who began drinking consistently after age 21, and 3) 22 people who did not have any AUD at all, though many of them drank at least somewhat. And among the three groups, only for the early-onset AUD group were epigenetic changes related to the expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) found, particularly in the amygdala, which is responsible for regulating emotions. These changes are thought to lead to difficulty regulating emotions, problems with anxiety, and even be part of the pathophysiology of alcoholism itself.
So what does this really mean, exactly? First of all, the researchers seem to have arbitrarily picked 21 as the dividing line between early-onset and late-onset AUD drinkers, and made no further distinction within the early-onset group (i.e., before 15, before 18, first drink, first drunkenness, first regular drinking, etc.). Secondly, the study looked at a small sample size of people with alcohol-use disorders (think alcohol abuse/dependence, alcoholism, truly heavy, heavy drinking for many years or decades), who at the time of death averaged well over 10 standard drinks per day and over 100 drinks per week, over 30+ years. Males were also overrepresented (in fact there were zero women in the early-onset AUD group), and the early-onset group drank significantly heavier then the late-onset group. It is probably safe to say that these drinkers are NOT representative of the vast majority of those who drink before 21, and given how early the onset of early-onset AUD drinkers tends to be, it would also be safe to say that this early-onset AUD group largely began drinking well before 18, if not before 15. And even among the late-onset AUD group, the relative lack of epigenetic changes certainly did NOT stop them from becoming alcoholics in any case.
Furthermore, there is no temporality to this non-longitudinal study, so we don't know whether or not these epigenetic changes were due to pre-existing vulnerability or perhaps the early use of other substances such as that now-infamous neurotoxin, nicotine. (Most of the study subjects were smokers, apparently, and about 90% of adult regular smokers typically begin smoking before age 18).
Thus, this study tells us NOTHING about the difference between people in general who begin drinking at 18 versus 21. NOTHING. Nor does it vindicate the ageist abomination that is the 21 drinking age. And anyone who claims otherwise is being, shall we say, "economical with the truth".
People in the United States are inherently supportive of oppression against young people while making up artifical groups; Transgender people for example. The point is that the authors of the study did not want to use the age of 18 for their research because they want to legitimize any support for the concept of a drinking age of 18. The U.S. is a country that is bombarded on a daily basis by the regressive leftist ideology. This is an ideology which disregards drug runners crossing the border with Meth while at the same time, saying that all minimum ages must be 21 and that youth rights is a threat to American society. People would rather criticize Trump for trying to secure the border while saying that young people must be protected by themselves by oppressive laws, what a shame!
ReplyDeleteI would not say that Transgender is an artifical group, nor would I say that ageism against young people is the province of the left any more than it is on the right. And most ironically about Trump and the border, drug smugglers (at least for hard drugs like meth, coke, and heroin) generally bring their stuff through legal ports of entry, though sometimes they also dig tunnels under the border for the bulkier cargo that also includes weed (though that is declining due to increased legalization in more and more states). Otherwise, I agree.
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