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Sleepy Teens 4.5 Times Likely to Commit Crimes By Age 29: Study

PHILADELPHIA (CBS)--Sleep may be just what the doctor ordered for teens with behavioral problems.

That's according to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, who found that sleepy teenagers may be more likely to get in trouble.

"It's the first study to our knowledge to show that daytime sleepiness during teenage years are associated with criminal-offending 14 years later," said Adrian Raine, the Richard Perry University Professor, in a news release.

The study found that teens who say they are tired in the mid-afternoon, are not only more prone to lying cheating stealing, and fighting -- they are also four-and-a-half times more likely to commit a crime by age 29.

Researchers tested 101 15-year-old boys from three secondary schools in the north of England.

At the start of each day, Raine asked participants to rate their degree of sleepiness on a 7-point scale, with 1 being "unusually alert" and 7 being "sleepy."

He also measured brain-wave activity and collected data about anti-social behavior, both self-reported from the participants and their teachers.

Then Raine searched for criminal records of each of the 101 participants and found that 17 percent of them had committed a crime by that point in adulthood.

"Is it the case that low social class and early social adversity results in daytime drowsiness, which results in inattention or brain dysfunction, which results 14 years later in crime? The answer's yes," he said. "Think of a flow diagram from A to B to C to D. Think of a chain. There is a significant link."

Put another way, he added: "Daytime drowsiness is associated with poor attention. Take poor attention as a proxy for poor brain function. If you've got poor brain functioning, you're more likely to be criminal."

READ MORE on the study HERE.

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