Teenagers who display impulsive tendencies are more likely to become heavy drinkers at an early age, a new study suggests.

Previous research has found a link between impulsivity and teenage drinking, but until now, it has been unclear whether impulsive people tend to drink more or whether drinking at a young age harms the brain, resulting in more impulsive tendencies.

Scientists from the University of Liverpool in the UK looked at this in almost 300 young people over a two-year period. All were aged 12 or 13 at the start of the study.

Tests were used to assess the teenagers' control over their inhibitions, their risk-taking behaviours and their ability to delay gratification.

The study found that those who had more impulsive tendencies at the beginning of the study became heavier drinkers and were more likely to have problems with alcohol later on.

However, the study did not find that drinking led to more impulsive behaviour. This indicates that while there is a link between drinking and impulsivity, alcohol may not actually lead to more impulsive behaviour, at least in the short-term.

"It is important to identify the psychological characteristics of adolescents who are likely to go on to drink heavily, because this can help us target alcohol prevention more effectively. In addition, we need to identify the consequences of heavy drinking during adolescence for health in general, and brain development in particular,"

"Our results show that more impulsive individuals are more likely to start drinking heavily in the future compared to less impulsive individuals. The next steps are to take these results and apply them to prevention interventions that are tailored to individual characteristics, such as impulsivity," explained lead scientist, Prof Matt Field.

He pointed out that young people are starting to drink alcohol at an earlier age now compared to years ago.

"We need to conduct studies where we follow-up young people for longer than the two years that we did in the present study. This will help us to understand whether heavy drinking over a longer period during adolescence has an impact on impulsive behaviour," Prof Field added.

Details of these findings are published in the journal, Addiction.