As a university professor, I must admit that I am astonished by the amount of alcohol current students consume. Most come to us with an already established pattern of heavy drinking from their high school days. Where their parents were at the time is another story….
Not only does the little graphic summarize where many students end up from drinking, but tragically, a certain number of people are just not going to be able to walk away from booze, even when they grow up enough to want to.
Wouldn’t it be nice to know up front whether or not you are likely to become an alcoholic? We’re getting much closer. A recently completed study by a team led by George Uhl of the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) identified 51 chromosomal regions associated with alcoholism. Using new techniques of “pooled data genome scanning,” the researchers were able to pinpoint areas associated with alcoholism with the finest resolution to date.
Assuming we someday might be able to scan for disease and vulnerability to substance abuse, imagine giving young children a card saying, “this you absolutely must not do.” My guess is that insurance providers would be right behind as well, saying that if you are warned and drink anyway, you are not covered. Technology changes, but human behavior remains remarkably constant. Some people will heed the warning, others will be in denial.
1 Comment
AshleyGrinchis · December 5, 2006 at 8:27 pm
OMG–I can’t even imagine being told as a child something that I could very easily become addicted to in the future. However, I do feel that it would be very valuable information and I would rather know so that I could be prepared for the consequences than not know at all and become addicted.
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