Many factors affect the person we become as adults. Genetics and environment play the largest role in shaping our adult selves. These two factors affect everything from the way we look to our personalities. A large share of research has been focused on understanding how genetics and environment shape personality including mood disorders and addictions.
When thinking about alcohol addiction it is understood that certain genetic factors can increase one risk for alcoholism later in life, but most important seems to be the environment we grow up in. Now a new study finds that the environment in the womb may also play a large role as to one's susceptibility to an alcohol addiction.
The study was published in the September issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry. Researchers in Australia assessed alcohol disorders in 2,138 subjects at 21 years of age and compared it to mother's alcohol intake before, during, and after the pregnancy.
They found that individuals whose mothers drank 3 or more alcoholic beverages per occasion during early and middle pregnancy were more likely to develop an alcohol problem. The addiction could develop as early as 14 years of age, but was most likely to occur during the 18-21 year old period.
There was not as great a risk to alcohol exposure in late pregnancy, though it still had a measurable effect. The effect of one or two drinks per occasion was not statistically different from no drinks in terms of alcohol disorders in the offspring.
The study was the first to show that prenatal exposure can increase the risk for an alcohol disorder later in life, regardless of genetics or environmental exposure outside of the womb. Alcohol use during pregnancy can also increase the risk for low birth weight, mental disorders, and fetal alcohol syndrome and is not recommended.
Posted by Dr. Christina Gutierrez on September 23, 2006 01:06 PM
