Think you're all grown up? Remarkable new research suggests young people don't become true adults until they're 24

Getting plastered every Saturday night before heading back to a respectable office job on Monday morning has become the norm for a lot of young adults in Britain. Now scientists have discovered a possible reason for such childish behaviour - people don't become true adults until they're 24.

Scientists believed adolescence started with the onset of puberty and finished in the late teens. But in a series on adolescent health published in The Lancet today, researchers describe how the brain is not fully developed until the age of 24.

People can legally smoke and have sex at 16, drive at 17, drink alcohol, vote and are deemed adults at 18 in Britain. But the research suggests the adolescent brain is ill-equipped to deal with the effects of drinking and drug-taking and less able to assess risk.

As a result more adolescents die from injury caused by accidents where, often unnecessary or excessive risks were taken, than anything else, scientists found.

Writing in The Lancet, Professor George Patton, from the University of Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues said: ‘For the largest generation in the world's history, the available global profile of youth health is worrying.’

In an editorial The Lancet identifies four areas to improve adolescents’ lives: the international comparisons of their behaviour, goals for their healthy development, preventive measures to reduce obesity, alcohol and drug abuse, and monitoring of their progress.

It adds: ‘Young people are our future assets. They provide energy, innovation, productivity and progress. Adolescent health (should be]) an equal concern alongside existing health priorities in the world.’



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