KANSAS CITY, KAN. ? Signs of alcoholism may be detectable in babies as young as 5 days old, according to research released Monday by a team at the Kansas University Medical Center.

The research found that babies whose muscles are less developed than their peers at five days and who sit up and walk later than their peers are more likely to become alcoholics by age 30.

“Down the road, we could identify people at risk and develop intervention strategies that keep them from going down that road” to alcoholism, said Ann Manzardo, the research assistant professor who led the study.

The study, published in this month’s issue of “Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research,” relied on two previous pieces of research. One was conducted on 9,100 babies born between 1959 and 1961 in Copenhagen, Denmark. A follow-up study in the late 1980s and early 1990s revisited a subgroup of the babies — two-thirds of whom were sons of fathers with alcoholism, the other third with no history of alcoholism — to determine which had become alcoholics.

Researchers have long known long-term, heavy drinking can cause deterioration in the cerebellum, the portion of the brain responsible for coordination. But the KU researchers showed that defects in the cerebellum actually may lead to alcoholism.

Specifically, Manzardo said, 77 percent of those studied who were unable to walk at 12 months of age became alcoholics, compared with 43 percent of those who already could walk.

Infants who couldn’t sit up by age 8 1/2 months and who had less muscle tone at 5 days old were more likely to become alcoholics.

Manzardo theorizes that those with cerebellar deficiencies — and therefore problems with coordination — would be more likely to act on emotional impulses without thinking about coordination, which is a sign of alcoholism.

“The motor coordination deficits that we found were minor deficits,” Manzardo said. “The subjects were not disabled or impaired in any way. They were just consistently lagging in several important benchmarks.”

Because the research studied primarily high-risk men, Manzardo said she didn’t know how the findings would translate to the general population.

“I certainly don’t want to scare people who might think if their child isn’t walking at one year, that he’s going to become an alcoholic,” she said. “All this study does is provide some preliminary evidence that developmental factors related to the cerebellum may also be associated with the later development of alcoholism.”

Manzardo said if further studies pointed to these markers as signs of alcoholism, then intervention such as nutrition and avoidance of certain stressful situations could be used to help prevent alcoholism.

Barry Liskow, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at KU, said the study had the potential to shift alcoholism research away from psychiatry and toward biology.

“Imaging studies have suggested the involvement of the cerebellum in schizophrenia,” he said. “However, there have, to my knowledge, been no studies that have suggested a role for the cerebellum in alcohol dependence.”