Anyone wishing for the federal legal drinking age of 21 to be lowered may not get what they want, as a new study has found it saves hundreds of lives every year.

According to Al Jazeera America, study author William DeJong, of Boston University, said the research acts as a myth-buster to the perception that a lower drinking age naturally teaches responsible alcohol consumption.

In the 1970s, several states lowered their drinking age to 18, 19 and 20, but a federal law changed that in 1988 to make the age 21 across the nation after a rise in drunk driving crashes among young people. A study from 2011 found 36 percent of U.S. high school sophomores said they had been drunk in their lifetime, far lower than 47 percent of students the same age in Europe.

DeJong also cited a previous study that found a five to nine percent decrease in drunk driving accidents among people aged 18-20 since 1988.

"The evidence is clear that there would be consequences if we lowered the legal drinking age," DeJong, the lead researcher, said in a press release.

The new study is published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

In 2008, the Amethyst Initiative, a group of more than 100 higher education leaders, started a movement to lower the federal drinking age. They cited a spike in college binge drinking as a reason the current law was not working to prevent young people from abusing alcohol. A non-profit group called Choose Responsibly tried a similar campaign two years earlier and both garnered a lot of attention but ultimately failed.

DeJong said the evidence in his study clearly indicated that the current legal drinking age prevents underage alcohol consumption and reduces drunk driving accidents. A 2011 study found that 36 percent of college students that year engaged in heavy drinking, compared to 45 percent in 1988, the first year of the federal drinking age being set at 21.

DeJong also found that students are less likely to drink underage when their school's town enforces the law more heavily.

"Some people assume that students are so hell-bent on drinking, nothing can stop them," DeJong said. "But it really is the case that enforcement works."