It has been documented that alcohol mixed with energy drink (AmED) use is associated with negative consequences such as hazardous alcohol use and driving under the influence. A new study examined patterns of AmED use during adolescence to young adulthood with the purpose of assessing age differences in AmED use. The sample (n = 2222) consisted of respondents between the ages of 18 to 30 years who had participated in the Monitoring the Future panel study from 2012 to 2015. Participants included in the sample responded to the AmED measures at least once from ages 18 through 29/30. They responded to questions regarding AmED use in the past 12 months, past 30-day cigarette smoking, past two-week binge drinking, past-year marijuana use, past-year nonmedical prescription drug use, and past-year illicit substance use other than marijuana along with demographics and college attendance. The authors used multiple logistic regression using generalized estimating equations (GEE) to model past-year AmED prevalence across age and other covariates. Results showed that about 45% of respondents indicated past-year AmED use during the study period. AmED use rapidly increased from 25.9% at age 18 to 43.5% at age 21/22 and then declined through later young adulthood reaching 32.0% at age 29/30. Furthermore, there were statistically significant positive linear and negative quadratic trends with respect to the correlation between age of respondent and past-year AmED use. In addition, significantly higher odds of AmED use were observed for respondents who had at least one parent who graduated from college in comparison to having no parents with a college degree, were full-time students at a four-year college at age 19/20 in comparison to not being a full-time student, and who, at age 18, reported binge drinking, marijuana use, or nonmedical prescription drug use. While AmED prevalence among college attenders rose from a modeled 21% at age 18 to 45% at ages 23/24 and 25/26, and then dropped to 33% by age 29/30, modeled AmED prevalence for non-college attenders rose from 26% at age 18 to approximately 35% at age 23/24, and then decreased to 29% by age 29/30.

Take away: Alcohol mixed with energy drink (AmED) use peaked at ages 21 to 24 years with a rate of 43.5%. In addition, full-time four-year college students reached higher levels of AmED use than non-college students.

Patrick, M. E., Veliz, P., Linden-Carmichael, A., & Terry-McElrath, Y. M. (2018). Alcohol mixed with energy drink use during young adulthood. Addictive Behaviors.