
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 2, 1994                   TAG: 9402020250
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Short

ALCOHOL TOLERANCE MAY BE INTOLERABLE

Young men who showed little effect from the equivalent of rapidly drinking three or five beers were much more likely to become alcoholics than men who felt very drunk, a study found.

The effect appeared not only among offspring of alcoholics, who are at increased risk of alcoholism, but also in other men.

The finding may help prevent alcoholism by persuading children of alcoholics to become abstainers if they can drink others under the table, said study author Dr. Marc Schuckit.

At the least, he said, it should warn them that if they drink until they feel like stopping, it may be too much.

The finding carries the same message for people who are not children of alcoholics, although the relative insensitivity to alcohol appears to be less common in them, he said.

The work is reported in the February issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry. Schuckit is a psychiatry professor at the University of California, San Diego.

\ ALCOHOL STUDY KEY FINDINGS

Men who showed the least reaction to alcohol in tests had a 43 percent rate of alcoholism by about nine years later, vs. 11 percent for men who had shown the greatest reaction.

Among men whose fathers had been alcoholic, the rates were 56 percent vs. 14 percent.

Among the other men, the rates were 24 percent vs. 9 percent.

by CNB