A study on smokers who drink heavily finds that a combination treatment of the drug varenicline and nicotine replacement therapy is more effective for smoking cessation, and that efforts to quit smoking can indirectly lead to reduced drinking rates.
In 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rate of drug overdose deaths among Black Americans surpassed that of whites for the first time since 1999 — a sharp reversal of the situation a decade earlier, when rates were twice as high for whites as for Blacks.
In the last 25 years, the United States and Canada have experienced an increasingly devastating opioid crisis that has cost more lives than World War I and II combined, with the cost to the United States alone estimated at $1 trillion.
Research at the University of Chicago has found that while taking small amounts of the psychedelic drug LSD — a practice known as “microdosing” — appears to be safe, it does not appear to significantly affect mood or cognitive function.
PNNL scientists are protecting first responders and others by expanding what’s known about fentanyl, the driver of the opioid epidemic. They’re expanding the library of known fentanyl analogs and predicting new forms that might exist someday.
People at risk of developing alcohol use disorder show lower functional connectivity between brain regions involved in processing facial expressions. Future psychoeducation programs focused on improving social and emotional processing may help prevent alcohol use disorder.
In the first study of its kind, researchers from NYU Grossman School of Medicine and Wake Forest University School of Medicine analyzed the trend of rising opioid/stimulant deaths by racial/ethnic groups and by state. Findings indicated that while overdose deaths from opioids and stimulants rose across all racial groups and across the country, opioid/stimulant deaths among Black Americans increased at more than three times the rate as non-Hispanic white people—particularly in eastern states.
Smokers were not early adopters of high nicotine e-cigarettes as cessation aids despite the rapid growth of sales of these products in 2017, report Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at University of California San Diego researchers.
A new analysis of hospital patient data in England over 10 years, published by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, shows opioid-related admissions increased by 48.9 per cent, from 10,805 admissions in 2008 to 16,091 admissions in 2018, with total treatment costs of £137 million.
Men with hypersexual disorder may have higher levels of oxytocin in their blood than men without the disorder, according to a small study published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
The Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts is announcing 11 new grants totaling $4.8 million to support innovative solutions to some of the opioid crisis’ most challenging problems.
In a first-ever study, researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine examined the unintentional drug overdose mortality in Years of Life Lost among adolescents and young people in the United States. Study findings are published online in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
A study is the first to evaluate the utility of online drug use forums as an early indicator of impending novel psychoactive substances (NPS) intoxications with potentially harmful or lethal outcomes before they happen. Results showed that seven of the eight NPS in the study appeared on Reddit discussions prior to their implication in poisonings or intoxications. These forums in the virtual world can help predict changes in exposures associated with new or re-emerging NPS in the real world, with potential to be used in early warning systems.
Neighborhoods with more opioid overdoses have higher rates of child welfare investigations and confirmed cases of child maltreatment, a new study in Ohio finds.
People who need to drink relatively high amounts of alcohol before feeling its effects, a genetically influenced risk factor for future heavy drinking and alcohol problems, may have differences in brain connectivity that impair their ability to interpret facial expressions and recognize their own intoxication, a new study suggests. The paper, in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, is believed to be the first to demonstrate differences in brain connectivity between people with low and high responses to alcohol. Varying levels of responses to alcohol — for example, how many drinks a person consumes before feeling intoxicated — are known to be related to neurobiological processing. Low responders, who drink more alcohol before feeling affected by it, are at greater risk of alcohol use disorder (AUD) than high responders, who feel the effects of fewer drinks. Scientists using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are exploring the possibility that low responders are less a
Rapid, accessible and highly accurate detection of addictive substances such as opiates and cocaine is vital to reducing the adverse personal and societal impacts of addiction, something current drug detection systems can take too long to provide. However, on-site, real-time monitoring of abused drugs in a patient’s system could alert clinicians before dangerous levels are reached, and such an approach may not be far away.
A new study by researchers with the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center shows Latino smokers on Medi-Cal are still not getting the cessation information they need to help them get treatment for tobacco addiction.
The accomplished researcher in addiction and substance use disorders also will serve as the Greg Brown Endowed Chair in Neuroscience and Cell Biology and as a tenured professor in the department of psychiatry at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Argonne and UChicago researchers used high-resolution technologies to see how dopamine circuitry in mice is affected by addictive drugs. The results answered older structural questions, while raising new ones about plasticity and recovery in the brain.
A study in mice led by UCLA researchers shows that removing chemical messengers in the brain that are involved in both wakefulness and addiction may make withdrawal from opioids easier and help prevent relapse.
Nearly half of people in a large U.S. study reported misusing prescription drugs between ages 18-50, which made them more likely to develop substance use disorder symptoms as adults––especially those whose misuse peaked later in life.
People in the U.S. had a billion more drinks per month from February 2020 to November 2020. A Penn State Heath addiction expert discusses when it’s time to quit alcohol.
For some, attending holiday events with alcohol present, being around the people with whom they used to drink or the smell of their favorite drink can be hard to resist, especially for those with alcohol use disorder.
Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System have been awarded a three-year, $447,000 grant to grow their addiction medicine education and training programs for medical students and residents. The grant, from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), will fund a new curriculum focused on the diagnosis and care for people with opioid use disorder (OUD), including guidance about medications for addiction treatment (MAT), particularly buprenorphine.
Smartphone apps to track blood alcohol abound, but until now had little evidence to show they help manage drinking in young adults. A new University of Florida study shows that heavy drinkers age 21-25 who weren’t trying to cut back on alcohol reduced their drinking by four and a half drinks per week while using the apps — nearly one drink less on each day they imbibed.
The University of Texas at El Paso will develop a sustainable public health intervention to suppress human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in people who use drugs in the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez border region. The initiative will be funded by a $3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
Young adults who experienced trauma in childhood are more at risk for misusing prescription opioids, according to new research from the University of Georgia.
Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System have been awarded a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to establish a multidisciplinary research center focused on treatments for people with both chronic pain and opioid use disorder (OUD).
About 12 percent of patients who receive implantable cardiac devices such as a pacemaker or defibrillator and fill an opioid prescription after surgery will consistently use the pain medication in the months afterward, raising the potential for addiction following these common procedures and identifying another pathway that could contribute to the national opioid crisis.
An international study led by UBC Okanagan researchers suggests repeated use of small doses of psychedelics such as psilocybin or LSD can be a valuable tool for those struggling with anxiety and depression.
A Michigan Medicine study found that only 7.4% of patients treated for an opioid overdose at U.S. emergency departments are prescribed naloxone, an overdose rescue drug often available under the name Narcan, within 30 days. The prescription rate for buprenorphine, a medication to treat opioid addiction, was just 8.5%. Researchers say clinicians are missing critical opportunities to save lives in the ER and during follow-up visits.
A research team at the University of Washington has developed a wearable device to detect and reverse an opioid overdose. The device, worn on the stomach like an insulin pump, senses when a person stops breathing and moving, and injects naloxone, a lifesaving antidote that can restore respiration.
The "Expanded Interprofessional Medication-Assisted Treatment Training Program" is a three-year grant totaling about $450,000 from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration (SAMHSA), a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The Bronx is home to more than 27,000 people living with HIV, the majority of whom are Black or Hispanic men. People living with HIV have an increased risk for depression and substance use, which in turn can make adhering to daily antiviral treatments difficult, negatively impacting both quality of life and overall health.
Now, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System two five-year grants totaling $7.6 million to study the structural and chemical changes in the brain of people living with HIV, depression, and cannabis use disorder.
Indiana University School of Medicine faculty are expanding the school's psychiatry-based substance use disorder services for adolescents and their caregivers through a five-year, $2.7 million grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Henry Ford Health System Sports Medicine team research shows that non-opioids provide effective pain relief following ACL reconstruction surgery. The study was recently published in The American Journal of Sports Medicine and lead researcher Dr. Vasilios (Bill) Moutzouros says the study's data is 'practice changing'.
University of Florida researchers are developing a new artificial intelligence tool that will help clinicians identify patients at high risk for opioid use disorder and overdose.
A new study published today reveals systematic biases among primary and HIV care providers about people who inject drugs and how those biases may impact access to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a preventive, prescription-based medication that significantly reduces the risk of HIV infection through sexual behavior and injection practices.
A five-year, $2.59 million grant from the National Institutes of Health will allow a psychology professor at Binghamton University, State University of New York to study the mechanisms of addiction.
The leading cause of HCV in the U.S. is injection drug use as a result of opioid use disorder (OUD), which has seen a rise in most populations, including pregnant people, in recent years. HCV rates have also risen. Between 2009 and 2019, the overall rate per 1,000 live births of HCV in pregnant people increased from 1.8 to 5.1.
Ayana Jordan, MD, PhD, a renowned expert in addiction and other mental health conditions in underserved populations, has joined NYU Langone Health’s Department of Psychiatry as the Barbara Wilson Associate Professor of Psychiatry.