Adolescents Who Stay Up Late At Increased Risk Of Substance Abuse

New findings published in the journal Sleep Health suggest that teens with sleep problems are more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, with are synonymous with previous findings that link increased risk of substance abuse to sleep disorders or insomnia.  

"Our findings suggest that sleep issues are independently associated with alcohol and marijuana use for teens, not just a marker for other risk factors, such as depression," said Wendy Troxel, the study's lead author and a behavioral scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization, in a news release. "Better understanding of the association between sleep and substance use is important for parents, schools and others involved in alcohol and drug prevention efforts for this age group."

Those involved in the study were originally recruited from 16 middle schools across three districts in Southern California, including a total of 2,539 teens who self-reported their total sleep time and bedtime via a single assessment Web survey that also included alcohol or marijuana use when the teens were in high school.

However, the researchers cautioned associations between sleep and the use of alcohol and marijuana, noting that it was not, at this time, possible to determine a cause and effect relationship without additional studies.