The findings from the United States challenge the claim by alcohol manufacturers that advertising does not influence the amount that young people drink, but merely encourages them to switch brand.

In a study at the University of Connecticut, scientists interviewed more than 4,000 Americans aged between 15 and 26 about their drinking habits and viewing of adverts. They found that each additional alcohol advert seen each month was associated with a 1 per cent increase in the average number of drinks consumed.

The effect could not be explained by people who already drank copiously seeking out and remembering alcohol advertising, suggesting that there may be a direct link.

Leslie Snyder, who led the study, said: “The results . . . contradict claims that advertising is unrelated to youth drinking amounts, that advertising at best causes brand switching, only affects those older than the legal drinking age, or is effectively countered by current educational efforts.

“Alcohol advertising was a contributing factor to youth drinking quantities over time.”

Details of the research are published today in the journal Archives of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

Increased investment in alcohol advertising in individual states was also associated with local young people spending more of their money on drink, the research found.

Young people drank 3 per cent more alcohol per month for each additional dollar spent per person in each of the markets studied.

David Jernigan, of the Centre on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University, Washington DC, wrote in an editorial that the research cast doubt on the alcohol industry’s central claims about advertising.

“The fact that young people, regardless of drinking behaviour at baseline, were more likely to drink more over time in environments with more alcohol advertising, even when controlling for alcohol sales in those environments, suggests that it is exposure to alcohol advertising that contributes to the drinking, rather than the reverse,” he said.

These and other findings pointed to alcohol advertising “as an important arena for interventions seeking to reduce under-age drinking and its tragic consequences”, he added.

A spokesman for the Portman Group, the drinks industry-funded body that promotes responsible drinking, said restrictions on drinks adverts were not the same in the US and Britain. “The advertising of alcohol in the UK is subject to very strict regulation to ensure that it doesn’t appeal to under-18s,” he said.”

Don Shenker of Alcohol Concern, the charity, said that the study showed a need for tougher action on alcohol adverts and promotions aimed at young people.

“Alcohol Concern is aware that the level of drinking among 11- to 15-year-olds has doubled in the past ten years,” he said. “We urge the drinks industry not to advertise its products or sponsor programmes before the watershed, as the evidence shows that young people who drink are particularly susceptible to alcohol marketing.”

He said government figures showed that advertising was linked to binge-drinking by young people. “We would urge the Government to take the industry to task if it acts irresponsibly in relation to marketing alcohol to under-age drinkers.”

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