‘Less intelligent’ children at higher risk of alcohol issues as an adult, scientists claim

Having a low IQ as a teenager could raise the risk of developing an issue with alcohol, alarming research today suggested. 

Experts have long warned a ‘quick fix environment’ which sees children increasingly addicted to screens with diminishing attention spans has caused problems in the way children develop. 

But researchers have now discovered a link between their cognitive performance and alcohol.

Swedish scientists who tracked nearly 600,000 18-year-old boys found that those who performed worse on cognitive tests were more likely to develop a problematic relationship with alcohol in later life. 

By contrast, those with high IQs were far less likely to develop an issue, they found. 

Experts today, who labelled the findings important, said they showed cognitive ability played a ‘significant’ role in developing an issue with alcohol. 

But they could not pinpoint exactly why this was the case and warned that further research was vital. 

Studies have previously suggested that having a problematic relationship with alcohol, known medically as alcohol use disorder, is to some degree heritable—meaning it can be passed on from parents to children.

But how this genetic risk may trigger development of the disorder is not clear. 

Writing in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, the scientists from Linköping University said: ‘This suggests that the association between IQ and alcohol use disorder risk cannot be fully explained by socioeconomic disadvantage.’ 

Efforts to reduce the risk of the condition, should take into account someone’s ‘cognitive traits’ as well as lifestyle factors, they added. 

In the study, the scientists tracked the 645 488 boys, born between 1950 and 1962, over an average of 60 years.  

They found a low IQ was associated with a 64 per cent higher lifetime risk of alcohol use disorder.

Even after accounting for those who had parents with a substance use disorder, the risk among those with lower IQs of developing an issue with alcohol later in life stood at 43 per cent. 

Conversely, a high IQ was associated with a 40 per cent reduced alcohol use disorder risk. 

Even among siblings, compared with their sibling with medium IQ, those with low IQ had nearly 40 per cent increased risk for a problematic relationship with alcohol. 

It comes as experts have warned that no amount of alcohol is ‘safe’, and that drinking at any level could cause brain damage, increasing the risk of dementia. 

Recent polls suggest that the average Briton drinks roughly 18 units of alcohol a week, equivalent to around six pints of 5.2 per cent beer every week, or six large glasses of wine.

Dr Katherine Severi, chief executive of the Institute of Alcohol Studies, who was not involved in the study, previously told the Daily Mail: ‘We know that children mirror the behaviour of the adults around them, so it’s important that parents who drink any amount are aware of how it could affect their child in later life.’

Leading experts have rowed about the harms of drinking for decades.

Scientists across the board, however, agree that excessive alcohol consumption can permanently damage the liver and cause an array of cancers and drive up blood pressure.

The World Health Organization estimate it kills three million people around the world each year.

The NHS recommends people drink no more than 14 ‘units’ of alcohol—around six glasses of wine, or pints of beer—per week.