Feature Channels: Alcohol and Alcoholism

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A new report indicates that more than one in five parents of teens aged 12 to 17 (22.3 percent) think what they say has little influence on whether or not their child uses illicit substances, tobacco, or alcohol. This report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) also shows one in ten parents said they did not talk to their teens about the dangers of using tobacco, alcohol, or other drugs – even though 67.6 percent of these parents who had not spoken to their children thought they would influence whether their child uses drugs if they spoke to them.

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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is proposing that the legal limit for a driver’s blood-alcohol content be reduced from 0.08 to 0.05, but and that may not be far enough says Thomas Esposito, MD, MPH, chief of the Division of Trauma, Surgical Critical Care and Burns in the Department of Surgery at Loyola University Medical Center.

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Just one in 100 parents believe their kids have used prescription stimulants to boost grades, according to new U-M National Poll on Children’s Health.

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A new report shows that among the approximately 57,000 teenage female (ages 12 to 19) substance abuse treatment admissions each year, about 2,000 (4 percent) involve pregnant teens. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) report finds that these pregnant teen admissions tend to face greater challenges than other female teen admissions in a number of key areas such as financial and educational status.

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Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have reported successful preclinical tests of a new vaccine against heroin. The vaccine targets heroin and its psychoactive breakdown products in the bloodstream, preventing them from reaching the brain.

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A new report shows that the number of emergency department visits involving adverse reactions to the sleep medication zolpidem rose nearly 220 percent from 6,111 visits in 2005 to 19,487 visits in 2010. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) report also finds that in 2010 patients aged 45 or older represented about three-quarters (74 percent) of all emergency department visits involving adverse reactions to zolpidem.

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Researchers from the University of California, San Diego Department of Pediatrics and Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego, a research affiliate of UC San Diego School of Medicine, have found a link between multivitamin use and alcohol consumption before pregnancy, uncovering a need for education about the importance of vitamin supplementation, particularly among women who drink alcohol during their childbearing years.

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Young adults reduce their overall prescription drug misuse up to 65 percent if they are part of a community-based prevention effort while still in middle school, according to researchers at Iowa State University.

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On Tuesday, April 23, 2013, The New York Academy of Medicine and the Drug Policy Institute will host a teleconference to release a comprehensive new report, Blueprint for a Public Health and Safety Approach to Drug Policy. The report coincides with the 40th anniversary of New York’s harsh Rockefeller Drug Laws, which became the national model for the war on drugs. The report includes numerous recommendations that outline how New York can lead the nation out of the failed drug war by implementing a public and safety approach to drug policy.

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The taste of beer, without any effect from alcohol itself, can trigger dopamine release in the brain, which is associated with drinking and other drugs of abuse, Indiana University School of Medicine researchers reported.

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People admitted to a hospital ICU with alcohol withdrawal were more likely to be readmitted or die within a year if they had a co-existing mental health condition, finds a recent study in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

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Despite potential, many public health agencies unaware of how to use regulation of alcohol density to address excessive drinking.

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Although previous research has linked alcohol consumption to an increased risk of developing breast cancer, a new study has found that drinking before and after diagnosis does not impact survival from the disease. In fact, a modest survival benefit was found in women who were moderate drinkers before and after diagnosis due to a reduced risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, a major cause of mortality among breast cancer survivors.

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Data from a statewide survey of sixth-, eighth-, and 11th-grade Iowa students found an increased risk for alcohol use, binge drinking, and using marijuana and other illegal drugs, among children of deployed or recently returned military parents compared to children in non-military families.

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A Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center team studying alcohol addiction has new research that might shed light on why some drinkers are more susceptible to addiction than others.

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A recent survey found high rates of regular alcohol and illicit and prescription drug use in tenth graders, reports a new study in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

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In a new book, UC Riverside sociologist Robert Nash Parker says that amending existing laws or adopting additional regulations to limit the availability of alcohol would reduce community violence.

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New research appearing online today shows that cannabis can be detected in the blood of daily smokers for a month after last intake. The scientific data in this paper can provide real help in the public safety need for a drugged driving policy that reduces the number of drugged driving accidents on the road.

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Study shows striking demographic shift in hospital admissions due to prescription opiate and heroin-related overdoses, 1993-2009.

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Youth in the 12th grade age range (ages 16 to 18) who have dropped out of school prior to graduating are more likely than their counterparts to be current users of cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana and other illicit drugs, according to a report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

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Canada-US-Italian research team develops a cocaine biosensor inspired from nature. Since the beginning of time, living organisms have developed ingenious mechanisms to monitor their environment. As part of an international study, a team of researchers has adapted some of these natural mechanisms to detect specific molecules such as cocaine more accurately and quickly. Their work may greatly facilitate the rapid screening—less than five minutes—of many drugs, infectious diseases, and cancers.

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Moderate intoxication may help a person notice minor changes in a visual scene, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have found.

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First national survey examining brand preferences among underage youth.

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University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) nephrologists have reported for the first time in medical literature cases of acute kidney injury directly linked with synthetic marijuana use. The case studies are reported online in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology and will appear in the March 2013 print edition of the journal.

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New reports by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) find that overall, from 2002 to 2011, the percentage of adolescents receiving substance abuse prevention messages in the past year from media fell significantly – from 83.2 percent in 2002 to 75.1 percent in 2011. School-based prevention messaging also dropped – from 78.8 percent in 2002 to 74.5 percent in 2011. The report also finds that roughly 40 percent of adolescents did not talk with their parents in the past year about the dangers of substance use.

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People who grew up in states where it was legal to drink alcohol before the age of 21 are more likely to be binge drinkers later in life. Washington University researchers found that people who lived in states with lower minimum drinking ages weren’t more likely to consume more alcohol overall, but when they did drink, they were more likely to drink heavily.

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When cocaine producers began using an inexpensive medication, levamisole, to dilute the cocaine to boost their profits, their customers were showing up in hospital emergency rooms with serious skin injuries caused by cocaine-levamisole toxicity. Dr. Craft, a dermatologist and lead researcher at Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute (LA BioMed), provided photographs of the skin condition to VisualDx – a new technology that was created with more than 100,000 medical images to help doctors visually diagnose disease.

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American Indians are at much greater risk of suicide after acute alcohol intoxication, according to a study led by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).

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Binge drinking causes insulin resistance, which increases the risk of Type 2 diabetes, according to the results of an animal study led by researchers at the Diabetes Obesity and Metabolism Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The authors further discovered that alcohol disrupts insulin-receptor signaling by causing inflammation in the hypothalamus area of the brain.

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A study by a University of Iowa-led research team has found that teenagers who exhibit problem drinking likely got their first drink from a friend. The reason, the researchers explain, is that friends who drink are more likely to have access to alcohol and are more likely to influence when their buddies first drink. The finding is part of a formula that may help specialists intervene before problem drinking arises in at-risk adolescents. Findings published in the journal Pediatrics.

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A new report shows that the number of emergency department visits involving attention deficit /hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) stimulant medications more than doubled from 13,379 visits in 2005 to 31,244 in 2010. The study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) finds that the greatest rates of increase in emergency department visits involving ADHD stimulant medications occurred among those aged 18 and older, while the level among those under 18 remained largely unchanged during this period.

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Personality-targeted school interventions delivered to high risk adolescents manage to reduce and postpone problem drinking, which is responsible for 9% of the deaths in young people between the ages of 15 and 29 in developed countries. Furthermore, by delaying alcohol uptake in at-risk youth, low-risk youth apparently gain group immunity due to reduced drinking within their social network.

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Only 1 in 5 parents say they are very concerned about children, teens misusing narcotics, according to U-M’s National Poll on Children’s Health.

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Scientists have identified genetic circumstances under which common mutations on two genes interact in the presence of cocaine to produce a nearly eight-fold increased risk of death as a result of abusing the drug.

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Switching the type of syringe used by people who inject drugs could help curb HIV transmission in countries with injection-driven epidemics within eight years, according to a new article by researchers at RTI International and Futures Institute.

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Health experts Dian Griesel, PhD and brother Tom Griesel, creators of the TurboCharged® fat loss program, examine recent National Center for Health Statistics study on alcohol consumption of the average American adult and the affects on weight loss.

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Rresearch from the Center for Adolescent Research and Education (CARE) at Susquehanna University and SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) suggests that dialogue between parents and their first-year college students may be more important than ever.

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Sending drug abusers to community-based treatment programs rather than prison could help reduce crime and save the criminal justice system billions of dollars, according to a new study by researchers at RTI International and Temple University.

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Prescription drug misuse is second only to marijuana as the nation’s most prevalent illicit drug problem, with approximately 22 million persons nationwide initiating nonmedical pain reliever use since 2002, according to a report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The report also shows variations in use by state, with combined 2010 and 2011 data indicating that rates of past year misuse among those aged 12 or older ranged from 3.6 percent in Iowa to 6.4 percent in Oregon.

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Roughly half of all black and Hispanic patients who enter publicly funded alcohol treatment programs do not complete treatment, compared to 62 percent of white patients, according to a new study from a team of researchers including the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Comparable disparities were also identified for drug treatment program completion rates.

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More people walk drunk than drive drunk, and the injuries are many, says Loyola trauma surgeon, Thomas Esposito.

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The holidays are a time to consume -- food, gifts, and spirits. Here are a few alcohol-related story ideas from The Methodist Hospital. Because alcohol's effects on human physiology are complex, advice about is often contradictory.

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Substance abuse treatment admissions for addiction involving combined use of benzodiazepine and narcotic pain relievers rose a total of 569.7 percent, to 33,701, from 2000 to 2010, according to a report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Overall substance abuse treatment admissions of people ages 12 and older in the same period rose 4 percent, to 1.82 million, the agency said.

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Efforts to reduce underage exposure to alcohol advertising by implementing time restrictions have not worked, according to new research from the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Dutch Institute for Alcohol Policy. The report concluded that time restrictions on alcohol advertising actually increase teen exposure, because companies move the advertising to late night.

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Dennis Donovan, director of the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute at the University of Washington, says that alcohol is a major issue around the holidays for both social drinkers and those recovering from alcoholism. He has advice for how to drink moderately, and treatment approaches he's used with people recovering from alcohol problems.

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Street forms of synthetic cannabinoids – so-called “synthetic marijuana” – were linked to 11,406 of the 4.9 million drug-related emergency department (ED) visits in 2010, according to a new report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

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Young people ages 15 to 24 are abusing prescription painkillers more than any other age group or any other youth in history. Availability of these drugs from their parents’ medicine cabinets may be to blame, according to new research in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

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Black Out Wednesday. Wild Turkey Wednesday. Wine Down Wednesday. The pre-Thanksgiving drinkfest is a call for potential injury, says Thomas Esposito, MD, chief, trauma, Loyola University Health System.

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Injured patients were less likely to die in the hospital if they had alcohol in their blood, according to a study from the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health -- and the more alcohol, the more likely they were to survive.