Spring break is here and many teenage girls may be tempted to take their first drink. The Science Inside Alcohol Project of the American Association for the Advancement of Science suggests that parents, teachers and caregivers help girls delay that first drink by telling them what scientific research shows regarding their ability to handle alcohol compared to boys.

There’s reason to worry. The number of teens who use alcohol rose 11% from 2008 to 2009, according to a new report from the Partnership for a Drug Free America. Teens are drinking younger and more often. In the 1960s, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, only 7% of girls reported having their first drink between the ages of 10 and 14. Now, 31% try alcohol before high school.

Here’s some of the science to share with teen girls and boys from the AAAS project’s Facebook page:

- Girls have less water in their bodies than boys. Girls have a slightly higher proportion of fat to lean muscle tissue, concentrating alcohol more easily in their lower percentage of body water. This means they become intoxicated faster after drinking less alcohol.

- Girls have fewer enzymes to break alcohol down. Alcohol dehydrogenases are a group of seven enzymes that help break down alcohol so the body processes it. Girls have fewer of them, so it is not as easy for their bodies to metabolize the alcohol they drink.

- Girls are smaller and often weigh less than boys. When drinking the same amount as a boy, a girl will experience a quicker rise in her blood alcohol level, and she may stay intoxicated for a longer period of time. Girls who drink heavily can be at greater risk for alcohol poisoning because it takes less alcohol for them to get really sick.

- Girls often prefer sweeter, carbonated mixed drinks. Such drinks can speed up the absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream.

If the science doesn’t sell girls on abstention or drinking less, here’s another reason. Boys don’t like it when girls drink heavily, according to David J. Hanson, professor emeritus of sociology at the State University of New York at Potsdam and a member of the Science Inside Alcohol Project Advisory Board.

On his “Alcohol Problems & Solutions” Web site, Hanson discussed a recent study in the journal, Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, which found that seven out of 10 of the college-age women surveyed thought their male peers wanted them to have five drinks during social occasions, while the men preferred they drink half that or less. “Not only does alcohol affect girls’ bodies differently from boys, the result of heavy drinking can be a turn off for boys,” says Hanson. “Boys don’t want to take care of a girl who is drunk.”

R-rated movies portray violence and other behaviors deemed inappropriate for children under 17 year of age. A new study finds one more reason why parents should not let their kids watch those movies: adolescents who watch R-rated movies are more likely to try alcohol at a young age.

Published in the March issue of Prevention Science, a scientific journal of the Society for Prevention Research, the study of 6,255 children examined the relationship between watching R-rated movies and the probability of alcohol use across different levels of “sensation seeking,” which is a tendency to seek out risky experiences. The study was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and conducted by James D. Sargent, MD, a pediatrician at Dartmouth Medical School. The children were surveyed every 8 months for a period of two years from 2003 through 2005.

“The study found that watching R-rated movies affected the level of sensation seeking among adolescents. It showed that R-rated movies not only contain scenes of alcohol use that prompt adolescents to drink, they also jack up the sensation seeking tendency, which makes adolescents more prone to engage in all sorts of risky behaviors” Sargent said.

“There is another take home point in the findings. When it comes to the direct effect on alcohol use, the influence of R-rated movies depends on sensation seeking level. High sensation seekers are already at high risk for use of alcohol, and watching a lot of R-rated movies raises their risk only a little. But for low sensation seekers, R-rated movies make a big difference. In fact, exposure to R-rated movies can make a low sensation seeking adolescent drink like a high sensation seeking adolescent.” Sargent explained.

The Dartmouth pediatrician said that one possible explanation is high sensation seeking adolescents tend to get their experiences out on the street. They hang around other high sensation seekers, who are also engaging in risky behaviors, so there is less room for movies to make a difference in their risk for alcohol use.

R-rated movies and alcohol

“The message to parents is clear. Take the movie ratings literally. Under 17 should not be permitted to see R-rated movies,” Sargent said.

The study was based on telephone surveys of 6,522 adolescents aged 10-14 years. Parental consent and adolescent consent was obtained prior to interviewing each respondent. To protect confidentiality, adolescents indicated their answers to sensitive questions by pressing numbers on the telephone, rather than speaking aloud. The study sample mirrored the U.S. adolescent population with respect to age, sex, household income and census region, but with a slightly higher percentage of Hispanics and a slightly lower percentage of Blacks.

Sensation seeking was based on how individual subjects identified with statements like: “I like to do scary things, I like to do dangerous things, I often think there is nothing to do, and I like to listen to loud music.” Adolescents were also asked if they had ever tried alcohol that their parents were not aware of. This excluded adolescents who initiated drinking with sips of alcohol provided by parents. R-rated movie watching was measured by asking respondents if they had watched a random selection of movie titles drawn from box office hits during 2003 that had grossed at least $15 million. The movie titles included movies that had G (general audience), P/G (parental guidance) and R (restricted) ratings.

Obesity and alcohol act together to increase the risk of liver disease in both men and women according to two studies published on bmj.com today. These findings have significant clinical and public health implications.

In the UK, rates of liver disease and obesity are increasing. Alcohol is a major cause of liver cirrhosis. In addition, recent evidence indicates that excess body weight may also play a role.

Researchers from the University of Oxford examined in the first study the link between body mass index (BMI) and liver cirrhosis. A total of 1.2 million middle-aged UK women took part in the Million Women Study.

Each participant was monitored for an average of 6.2 years. Risks were modified according to age, alcohol consumption, smoking, socioeconomic status and physical activity.

Women who were overweight or obese had an increased relative risk of liver cirrhosis compared to women of a healthy weight. This relative risk did not differ considerably by alcohol consumption, but the absolute risk did.

For instance, among women who reported drinking an average of about a third to half a drink a day, 0.8 in 1,000 will be admitted to hospital with, or will die from, liver cirrhosis over five years if they are of healthy weight. This compares with 1 in 1,000 women who are obese.

However, among women who reported drinking an average of two and a half drinks a day, 2.7 in 1,000 will be admitted to hospital with or will die from liver cirrhosis over five years if they are of healthy weight. This compares with 5 in 1,000 women who are obese.

Researchers from the Universities of Glasgow and Bristol investigated in the second study the joint effects of BMI and alcohol consumption on liver disease in more than 9,000 men in Scotland. Participants were monitored for an average of 29 years.

Both factors were related to liver disease. Significantly, the combination of high BMI and alcohol consumption was greater than the additive effect of the two separate factors.

For instance, obese men who reported drinking 15 or more units per week had the greatest risk of liver disease: almost 19 times higher than underweight or normal weight non-drinkers. The researchers observe that lower, BMI specific “safe” limits of alcohol consumption may need to be defined for people who are overweight. They explain that in addition preventive efforts are required to limit the affordability and availability of alcohol and to increase physical activity.

From a public health standpoint, both studies conclude that strategies to reduce both excessive alcohol consumption and excessive body weight should result in a decline in the prevalence of liver disease.

In an associated editorial, Professor Christopher Byrne at the University of Southampton and Dr Sarah Wild from the University of Edinburgh comment that upcoming research must center on improved diagnosis and treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. This is a build-up of fat in the liver caused by obesity, high alcohol intake and diabetes and which can lead to cirrhosis.

They write that, for now, the old proverb of “prevention is better than cure” remains relevant. “Reducing alcohol consumption and obesity are, at present, our only weapons against non-viral liver disease. The progression of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease to end stage liver disease can now be added to the list of the undesirable consequences of modern lifestyles.”

“Body mass index and risk of liver cirrhosis in middle aged women in UK: prospective study”

Normal-weight women who drink a light to moderate amount of alcohol appear to gain less weight and have a lower risk of becoming overweight and obese than non-drinkers, according to a report in the March 8 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

More than half of American adults drink alcoholic beverages, according to background information in the article. Alcohol contains about 7 calories per gram (with approximately 28 grams per ounce) and alcohol drinking may possibly lead to weight gain through an imbalance of energy consumed and energy burned. However, research has not consistently provided evidence that consuming alcohol is a risk factor for obesity.

Lu Wang, M.D., Ph.D., of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, and colleagues studied 19,220 U.S. women age 39 or older who had a body mass index (BMI) in the range classified as normal (18.5 to 25). On an initial questionnaire, participants reported how many alcoholic beverages they typically drank per day. A total of 7,346 (38.2 percent) reported drinking no alcohol; 6,312 (32.8 percent) drank less than 5 grams; 3,865 (20.1 percent) drank 5 to less than 15 grams; 1,129 (5.9 percent) drank 15 to less than 30 grams; and 568 (3 percent) drank 30 grams per day or more.

Over an average of 13 years of follow-up, women on average gained weight progressively. Women who did not drink alcohol at all gained the most weight, with weight gain decreasing as alcohol intake increased. A total of 7,942 (41.3 percent) women who initially had normal weight become overweight or obese (BMI of 25 or higher), including 732 (3.8 percent) who become obese (BMI of 30 or higher). Compared with women who did not drink at all, those who consumed some but less than 40 grams per day of alcohol were less likely to become overweight or obese. Women who drank 15 to less than 30 grams per day had the lowest risk, which was almost 30 percent lower than that of non-drinkers.

“An inverse association between alcohol intake and risk of becoming overweight or obese was noted for all four types of alcoholic beverages [red wine, white wine, beer and liquor], with the strongest association found for red wine and a weak yet significant association for white wine after multivariate adjustment,” the authors write.

The authors caution that, given potential medical and psychosocial problems related to drinking alcohol, its beneficial and adverse effects for each individual must be considered before making any recommendation about its use. “Further investigations are warranted to elucidate the role of alcohol intake and alcohol metabolism in energy balance and to identify behavioral, physiological and genetic factors that may modify the alcohol effects,” they conclude.

Nicotine takes much longer than previously thought to reach peak levels in the brains of cigarette smokers, according to new research conducted at Duke University Medical Center.

Traditionally, scientists thought nicotine inhaled in a puff of cigarette smoke took a mere seven seconds to be taken up by the brain, and that each puff produced a spike of nicotine. Using PET imaging, Duke investigators illustrate, for the first time, that cigarette smokers actually experience a steady rise of brain nicotine levels during the course of smoking a whole cigarette.

The findings, scheduled to appear online in the Early Edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) the week of March 8, could lead to more effective treatments for smoking addiction.

“Previously it was thought that the puff-by-puff spikes of nicotine reaching the brain explained why cigarettes are so much more addictive than other forms of nicotine delivery, like the patch or gum,” says Jed Rose, Ph.D., director of the Duke Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research. “Our work now calls into question whether addiction has to do with the puff-by-puff delivery of nicotine. It may actually depend in part on the overall rate at which nicotine reaches and accumulates in the brain, as well as the unique habit and sensory cues associated with smoking.”

Yet, when the researchers compared 13 dependent smokers to 10 non-dependent smokers, they were surprised to find the dependent smokers had a slower rate of nicotine accumulation in the brain. “This slower rate resulted from nicotine staying longer in the lungs of dependent smokers, which may be a result of the chronic effects of smoke on the lungs,” surmises Rose.

The difference in rate of nicotine accumulation in the brain doesn’t explain why some people become addicted to cigarettes and others don’t. “Even if you correct for the speed of delivery, our study showed the non-dependent smokers eventually experienced the same high levels of nicotine in their brain as dependent smokers, yet they did so without becoming dependent. The real mystery is why.”

Rose says the absence of addiction in these smokers could be due to genetic differences, differences in the way they smoke, or differences in the psychological effects they derive. “We’re still not able to fully explain why these people are able to smoke without becoming addicted.”

Despite the questions raised, the study provides important insights into the role of the speed and level of brain nicotine levels, and which receptors in the brain are at work. “Different receptors respond to nicotine at different levels of sensitivity,” says Rose. “Knowing the levels of nicotine that are really getting to the brain gives us clues as to which receptors are more likely to be important for the dependence-producing effects of cigarette smoking.”

A new study from the US found that normal weight women in their 40s and older who drank a light to moderate amount of alcohol gained less weight and had a lower risk of becoming obese and overweight compared to their non-drinking counterparts.

The researchers, from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, have written about their study in a paper published online in the 8 March issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

At 7 calories per gram (equivalent to 199 calories per ounce), alcohol is potentially a significant source of dietary calories, and more than half of adult Americans are alcohol drinkers. Meanwhile obesity is approaching epidemic proportions in the US, yet evidence on the extent to which alcohol consumption contributes to this public health crisis is patchy, suggested the authors.

For their prospective cohort study, which was sponsored by grants from the National Institutes of Health, lead author Dr Lu Wang, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and colleagues examined data from 19,220 women living in the US who were aged 39 and over, had no traces of cardiovascular disease, cancer, or diabetes, and whose body mass index (BMI) was in the range classified as normal (18.5 to less than 25). BMI is calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared.

At the start of the study the women filled in a questionnaire that asked them about their daily alcohol consumption. After that they filled in questionnaires about their weight every year for an average of 13 years.

The results showed that:

* At the start of the study, 38.2 per cent reported drinking no alcohol, 32.8 per cent reported drinking less than 5 grams a day, 20.1 per cent reported drinking 5 to less than 15 grams, 5.9 per cent reported drinking 15 to less than 30 grams, and 3 per cent reported drinking 30 or more grams of alcohol a day.

* Over the 13 years of follow up, the women’s average weight went up steadily.

* 41.3 per cent of the women became overweight (BMI of 25 or more), and 3.8 per cent became obese (BMI of 30 or more).

* After adjusting for potential confounders like baseline BMI, smoking, other calorie sources, exercise, and other lifestyle and dietary factors, there was an inverse association between the amount of daily alcohol the women said they drank in their initial questionnaires and the weight gained over the follow up.

* Compared with women who did not drink at all, those who consumed some but less than 40 grams of alcohol a day had a lower risk of becoming overweight or obese.

* Women who drank 15 to less than 30 grams of alcohol per day had the lowest risk, which was nearly 30 percent lower than that of their non-drinking counterparts.

The authors also looked at four types of alcoholic beverages and found the links to be the same for all, with perhaps the strongest being for red wine.

They concluded that:

“Compared with nondrinkers, initially normal-weight women who consumed a light to moderate amount of alcohol gained less weight and had a lower risk of becoming overweight and/or obese during 12.9 years of follow-up.”

However, the authors stressed that given the potential medical and psychosocial problems of alcohol consumption, recommendations about its use should be made on an individual by individual basis.

They also suggested more studies are needed to find out the biological mechanisms of the role played by alcohol in energy metabolism, and whether any physiological and genetic factors are involved.

“Alcohol Consumption, Weight Gain, and Risk of Becoming Overweight in Middle-aged and Older Women.”

Oxygen for ethanol oxidation is supplied through breathing, the stomach, and the skin. There is a great deal of genetic and environmental variability in the pharmacokinetics of alcohol absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination. A new study has found that increasing dissolved oxygen concentrations in alcohol may help to reduce alcohol-related side effects and accidents.
“Ethanol is oxidized to acetaldehyde, then further oxidized to water and carbon dioxide in the body after consumption,” explained Kwang-il Kwon, a professor in the college of pharmacy at Chungnam National University and corresponding author for the study. “These oxidation reactions occur primarily via hepatic oxidation and are governed by the catalytic properties of alcohol-metabolizing enzymes, including the microsomal ethanol oxidizing system (MEOS), alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH). Ethanol oxidation by ADH, ALDH, and MEOS requires oxygen, and a higher oxygen uptake increases the rate of ethanol oxidation.”

“Several studies have indicated that high-oxygen water can enhance the survival ability of mice, fatigue recovery, and anoxia endurance function,” added Hye Gwang Jeong, a professor in the department of toxicology in the college of pharmacy at Chungnam National University. “It can also increase energy storage. However, the influence of dissolved oxygen concentration on alcohol pharmacokinetics has not previously been described. This manuscript is the first to investigate the influence of dissolved oxygen concentrations on the pharmacokinetics of alcohol in healthy human subjects.”

Kwon and his colleagues performed three experiments with 49 healthy volunteers (30 men, 19 women), with a mean age of 27.2 years. Experiment one compared 8 ppm and 20 ppm dissolved oxygen concentrations in 240 ml of 19.5 percent alcoholic beverage. Experiment two compared 8 ppm and 20 ppm dissolved oxygen concentrations in 360 ml of 19.5 percent alcoholic beverage. Experiment three compared 8 ppm and 25 ppm dissolved oxygen concentrations in 360 ml of 19.5 percent alcoholic beverage.

Results showed that elevated, dissolved oxygen concentrations in alcoholic drinks can accelerate the metabolism and elimination of alcohol. For example, the time to reach 0.000 percent blood alcohol concentration (BAC) for the 240 ml of 19.5 percent alcoholic beverage with 20 ppm dissolved oxygen concentration was 20.0 min faster than with 8 ppm (257.7 min). The time to reach 0.000 percent BAC for the 360 ml of 19.5 percent alcoholic beverage with 20 ppm (334.5 min) and 25 ppm (342.1 min) dissolved oxygen concentration was 23.3 min and 27.1 min faster than with 8 ppm, respectively.

“The oxygen-enriched alcohol beverage reduces plasma alcohol concentrations faster than a normal dissolved-oxygen alcohol beverage does,” said Kwon. “This could provide both clinical and real-life significance. The oxygen-enriched alcohol beverage would allow individuals to become sober faster, and reduce the side effects of acetaldehyde without a significant difference in alcohol’s effects. Furthermore, the reduced time to a lower BAC may reduce alcohol-related accidents.”

Both Kwon and Jeong noted that alcoholic drinks with a higher oxygen concentration already exist in Korea, but they lack scientific support. “It seems that these drinks can maintain a high dissolved-oxygen concentration for about 10 to 20 days before the stopper is removed, and for 70 minutes after removing the stopper, respectively, at room temperature,” said Kwon.

Despite limited evidence of long-term success in using opioid pain medications for chronic low back pain, opioid prescribing has increased in recent years for back pain and other non-cancer pain indications. The implications are controversial as published studies provide little evidence indicating which patients will benefit from long-term opioid treatment.

New research, published in The Journal of Pain, identifies predictors of long-term opioid use among patients with chronic back pain caused by lumbar spine conditions. Participants were recruited from 13 spine specialty centers in 11 states and totaled 2,110. Forty-two percent reported using opioids for pain from their spine condition and a third said they take opioids every day.

From their analysis of the demographic, medical and social characteristics of study participants, the researchers found that nonsurgical treatment and smoking independently predicted continued long-term opioid use and pain severity did not. The authors noted that smoking can be a marker for substance abuse disorders, which was not a characteristic evaluated in the sample due to limitations for measuring alcohol or drug use. Therefore, the researchers were unable to consider substance abuse as a predictor of long-term opioid use. However, the association with smoking could be interpreted as a surrogate predictor for substance abuse, given its strong link with smoking.

Regarding the nonsurgical predictor, the authors noted that risks associated with continued pain management with opioids in some patients may outweigh the risks of surgery. This might be a factor worth considering in surgical decision making for patients with herniated discs or stenosis, especially those with a history of substance abuse.

Before patting yourself on the back for resisting that cookie or kicking yourself for giving in to temptation, look around. A new University of Georgia study has revealed that self-control – or the lack thereof – is contagious.

In a just-published series of studies involving hundreds of volunteers, researchers have found that watching or even thinking about someone with good self-control makes others more likely exert self-control. The researchers found that the opposite holds, too, so that people with bad self-control influence others negatively. The effect is so powerful, in fact, that seeing the name of someone with good or bad self-control flashing on a screen for just 10 milliseconds changed the behavior of volunteers.

“The take home message of this study is that picking social influences that are positive can improve your self-control,” said lead author Michelle vanDellen, a visiting assistant professor in the UGA department of psychology. “And by exhibiting self-control, you’re helping others around you do the same.”

People tend to mimic the behavior of those around them, and characteristics such as smoking, drug use and obesity tend to spread through social networks. But vanDellen’s study is thought to be the first to show that self-control is contagious across behaviors. That means that thinking about someone who exercises self-control by regularly exercising, for example, can make your more likely to stick with your financial goals, career goals or anything else that takes self-control on your part.

VanDellen’s findings, which are published in the early online edition of the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, are the result of five separate studies conducted over two years with study co-author Rick Hoyle at Duke University.

In the first study, the researchers randomly assigned 36 volunteers to think about a friend with either good or bad self-control. Those that thought about a friend with good self-control persisted longer on a handgrip task commonly used to measure self-control, while the opposite held true for those who were asked to think about a friend with bad self-control.

In the second study, 71 volunteers watched others exert self-control by choosing a carrot from a plate in front of them instead of a cookie from a nearby plate, while others watched people eat the cookies instead of the carrots. The volunteers had no interaction with the tasters other than watching them, yet their performance was altered on a later test of self-control depending on who they were randomly assigned to watch.

In the third study, 42 volunteers were randomly assigned to list friends with both good and bad self-control. As they were completing a computerized test designed to measure self-control, the computer screen would flash the names for 10 milliseconds – too fast to be read but enough to subliminally bring the names to mind. Those who were primed with the name of a friend with good self-control did better, while those primed with friends with bad self-control did worse.

In a fourth study, vanDellen randomly assigned 112 volunteers to write about a friend with good self-control, bad self-control or – for a control group – a friend who is moderately extroverted. On a later test of self-control, those who wrote about friends with good self-control did the best, while those who wrote about friends with bad self-control did the worst. The control group, those who wrote about a moderately extroverted friend, scored between the other two groups.

In the fifth study of 117 volunteers, the researchers found that those who were randomly assigned to write about friends with good self-control were faster than the other groups at identifying words related to self-control, such as achieve, discipline and effort. VanDellen said this finding suggests that self-control is contagious because being exposed to people with either good or bad self-control influences how accessible thoughts about self-control are.

VanDellen said the magnitude of the influence might be significant enough to be the difference between eating an extra cookie at a party or not, or deciding to go to the gym despite a long day at work. The effect isn’t so strong that it absolves people of accountability for their actions, she explained, but it is a nudge toward or away from temptation.

“This isn’t an excuse for blaming other people for our failures,” vanDellen said. “Yes, I’m getting nudged, but it’s not like my friend is taking the cookie and feeding it to me; the decision is ultimately mine.”

As Atlanta officials aim to tackle the city’s safety problems this year, some of their toughest criminals to stop maybe young offenders whose desires to commit crimes are being fueled by an anticipation of dying early.

Georgia State University Criminal Justice experts Timothy Brezina, Volkan Topalli and economist Erdal Tekin, have released a unique study that indicates that although young criminals are aware of the risks of violent injury, death or punishment, the possibility of a shorter life span encourages them to focus more on the “here and now.”

“It turns out that if you boil it all down the more you think you are going to die young the more likely it is that you are going to engage in criminality and violence,” Topalli said. “This is the opposite of what most people think, because most people think that if you think you’re going to die soon you become depressed and you wouldn’t commit crimes.”

The research “Might not be a Tomorrow”, is among the first Criminal Justice studies to simultaneously include one-on-one offender interviews with an econometric analysis of nation-wide adolescent data to provide a better understanding of why young people tend to pursue high-risk behaviors associated with immediate rewards, which include crime and violence.

The professors interviewed more than 30 young offenders in some of Atlanta’s toughest neighborhoods, specifically focusing on Central West Atlanta, a community that has suffered high rates of drug trafficking, serious street crime and youth violence. Those interviews, which lasted from 45 to 120 minutes, focused on the participants’ perception of risk, with an emphasis on the risk of future injury, early death and the extent to which these perceptions influenced their attitudes and behaviors related to offending.

“Many had been shot or stabbed and bore visible scars of physical trauma,” Brezina said. “They also expressed what criminologists refer to as a “coercive” worldview; in their eyes, they occupy a dog-eat-dog world where it is acceptable if not necessary to use force to intimidate others and to prevent victimization.”

The bleak outlook on life and sense of “futurelessness” of young offenders has been shaped by some of their earliest memories and reinforced by other people in their lives and the witnessing of violence, Topalli said. Prior research has found that when young people believe they have no future, it is argued, they have little to lose by engaging in crime or violence.

“They live in neighborhoods that are kind of like war zones,” Topalli said. “They grew up hearing gun shots, seeing people die and hearing ambulances and police cars. Just about every young person we talked to had seen a dead body, and either has fired a weapon or has been fired upon in some context. Over 70 percent of them have been victimized themselves, which is far greater than the larger population. The majority of them won’t die early, but the illusion is that you will and it’s reinforced by the culture.”

The professors also analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, also known as Add Health, which was specifically designed to investigate adolescents’ health and risk behaviors and is considered the largest and most comprehensive survey of adolescents ever undertaken. The data includes responses from more than 20,000 adolescents between seventh and 12th-grade and their parents. Detailed questions were included about the delinquent behavior of adolescents, like whether they had committed crimes such as theft, robbery or shooting in the nine to 12 months prior to the interview and whether they thought they will live to 35 or be killed by the age of 21.

The study’s finding state that when the perceived chance of being killed by age 21 is greater than 50 percent, the probability of offending behavior increases by 3.3 percent. The probability of offending behavior increases by 3.4 percent when the perceived chance of living to age 35 is less than 50 percent.

“The results from the Add Health study mirrored the results from the interviews,” Topalli said.

Georgia State researchers say the finding have implications for public policy. And not only do the researchers have plans to expand the research, Georgia State University is establishing a Center for Crime and Violence Prevention Policy, to deal with issues like youth/gang violence, urban drug markets and crime trend forecasting.

“It seems unlikely that threats of harsher criminal justice penalties will deter these fearless offenders. They assume life is short anyway and willingly accept the risks associated with a criminal lifestyle – even death,” Brezina said. “An alternative approach is to confront the pervasive violence and other social ills that so many inner-city children confront in their daily lives – conditions that deflate hope and breed crime in the first place.”