news, journals and articles from all over the world.
In the first study of its kind, University of South Australia researchers found that compared to the yearly average, people’s alcohol intake in December was 70% higher, non-alcoholic drinks (like juice and soft drinks) were about 30% higher, and sweet and savoury snacks were about 10% higher.
Alcohol’s ability to increase people’s pain threshold is one reason that drinking also leads to more aggressive behavior, a new study suggests. Researchers found that the less pain that study participants felt after drinking an alcoholic beverage, the more pain they were willing to inflict on someone else.
Among young adults who frequently use cannabis, drinking alcohol is linked to intensified cannabis cravings in men and reduced cannabis cravings in women, a novel study suggests. The findings potentially illuminate mechanisms driving the combined use of the two substances and could inform sex-specific approaches to preventing or addressing the resulting harms. Young adults commonly use alcohol and cannabis together (i.e., co-use), and people who use both substances experience more negative consequences—including worse outcomes for alcohol use disorder treatment—than those who use one or the other. Co-use may be partially driven “cross-substance-induced” craving, in which the repeated co-use of two substances prompts one to become a trigger for the other. Research on this effect involving alcohol and cannabis—previously limited to laboratory testing and remote monitoring—has hinted at sex differences in these effects. For the study in Alcohol: Clinical Experimental Research, investigato
A population-based study of adults aged 18 and older found that alcohol use increased during the COVID-19 pandemic and was sustained post pandemic.
Young adults think electronic interventions might help to reduce the negative consequences of alcohol use if tailored to their personal needs and goals. In a qualitative study, young adults reported that such real-time interventions should be customizable, easy to use, and provide digestible amounts of non-judgmental information.
The effects of rapid exposure to alcohol in early pregnancy – when a woman consumes as many as six drinks in an hour – can be detected in the placenta, an UdeM study on mice suggests.
Injured adolescents from marginalized groups treated at pediatric trauma centers are more likely to be tested for drugs and alcohol than white adolescents, even when accounting for injury severity.
Young adults who drink heavily reported that a specific intervention that provides personalized feedback on daily drinking would be beneficial for people who want to reduce their drinking and would encourage self-reflection among those who are not yet ready to change their drinking habits. The young adults were participants in a pilot study of a first-of-its-kind technology aimed at reducing heavy drinking in young adults through self-selected goal setting and daily personalized feedback based on self-reported behaviors related to drinking. The study is described in Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research.
People with alcohol use disorder (AUD) who are at risk of advanced liver disease are less likely to be referred for liver evaluation and care if they present primarily with alcohol-related mental health issues or a mental health diagnosis, according to a study of referral practices in Virginia’s largest health system. The findings point to the possibility of widespread missed opportunities for treating three conditions that commonly co-occur: AUD, mental health disorders, and liver disease. Recent years have seen notable increases in the USA in alcohol-related deaths, mental health disorders, and hospital admissions relating to alcohol use and concurrent mental health conditions. AUD is a significant cause of liver disease, and both addiction and co-occurring mental illness can be barriers to successful liver treatment. Integrating AUD treatment, mental health care, and hepatology (liver care) is necessary to improve outcomes, but data suggests this approach is not the norm. For the st
In a large group of frequent drinkers who used a digital application offering tailored text-based support for reducing their alcohol intake, weekly drink amounts fell by 1/3 over 12 weeks. The study of real-world users shows promise for people who are uncomfortable with their drinking habits but may not meet the criteria for alcohol use disorder (AUD). Although they may be unlikely to aim for abstinence or to seek formal treatment, many are open to moderating their drinking. Digital interventions, such as self-guided online programs and smartphone apps, are easily accessible and engaging. Studies have shown that text-based messaging interventions can result in short- and medium-term reductions in alcohol use. Digital programs that tailor content according to users’ evolving outcomes, similar to clinical care, may be particularly effective. Outcomes data are limited, however. For the study in Alcohol: Clinical & Experimental Research, researchers evaluated an adaptive, tailored digital
A new study led by the University of Portsmouth suggests recollecting a previous drinking episode could put women off drinking too much.
Little is known about the association between the frequency of alcohol use and the severity of injuries sustained after a fall in older adults. A study of 3,128 older adults who underwent an initial head CT scan in the emergency department after head trauma from a fall shows that occasional alcohol use was associated with double the odds of a brain bleed when compared to patients with no alcohol use. Daily alcohol use was associated with 150% increased odds of a brain bleed.
Researchers analyzed data from 241 Florida law enforcement agencies across 67 counties to explore police misconduct. They uncovered 24 types of offenses, such as assault, weapons violations, manslaughter, and perjury. Notably, failure to report and perjury topped the list, with sexual crimes and drug/alcohol-related offenses also prominent.
Young adult men who viewed alcohol warning labels experienced a lower activation of the reward circuits in their brains when the warnings were larger and involved pictures, compared to more familiar small-text warnings, in a first-of-its-type study. The findings could inform more effective messaging on alcohol-containing beverages and advertisements. Despite recommendations from the World Health Organization and European Commission that warning labels be included on alcoholic products, few countries have implemented alcohol warning policies comparable to their approach to tobacco. Alcohol warnings are typically small, text-only messages. Research has been equivocal about their impact on drinking and whether incorporating pictures would increase their effectiveness, in part because most studies have relied on participants’ self-reported reactions. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has demonstrated variations in brain activation in response to varying types of tobacco warnings
A new University of Georgia study reveals that one in five U.S. farmers report binge drinking when they experience high levels of stress. The paper underlines the link between farmers using alcohol to cope with stress. Farming is a uniquely stressful vocation. Farmers work long hours performing labor-intensive, repetitive and often dangerous tasks.
Despite evidence that allowing children to try alcohol with parental supervision can increase risk for later drinking, many parents continue to do so in the belief that their children are more likely to develop responsible drinking habits.
Young adults (aged 18-25) who use alcohol have varying personal reasons for not drinking on some days—reasons that could be harnessed to improve the effectiveness of programs preventing and treating alcohol use disorder (AUD), a new study suggests.
More clinical research is needed to investigate how reducing alcohol consumption in patients with alcohol-related liver disease (ALD) may slow disease progression and improve outcomes, according to an international task force of experts from more than two dozen institutions including UT Southwestern Medical Center.
A strategy aimed at preventing restaurants and bars from serving alcohol to patrons who are already intoxicated does not appear to be effective, according to a study recently published in Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research.
The narrowing gap between binge drinking among adult women and men has been driven partly by women’s rising use of alcohol for social reasons—to have fun. In addition, women are increasingly using alcohol to relax or relieve tension, a new study has found. Alcohol use in the USA has increased steadily over the past 20 years, and excessive drinking underlies 1 in 8 deaths of working-age adults. The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to a 25% increase in alcohol-related deaths from 2019 to 2020. Overall, figures like these mask differences by age, however. For over four decades, alcohol use and binge drinking have declined among adolescents and early adults. But by age 30, that effect has plateaued or reversed. Binge drinking has risen more among women than men, narrowing the gender gap for reasons that haven’t been explained by broad societal trends (such as education, family timing, and gender roles). For the study in Alcohol: Clinical & Experimental Research, US researchers considered the
Below are summaries of recent Fred Hutch Cancer Center research findings, patient stories and other news.
Low-to-moderate drinking may not be protective against certain health conditions, and “safe” alcohol use guidelines may be substantially off base. These are among the implications of a review of studies that use a novel research method.
Indiana University School of Medicine researchers recently were awarded $4.7 million from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to further the study of caregiver intervention in reducing adolescent alcohol use and other substance use disorders (SUDs).
Some people have genes that protect them from alcohol abuse. An examination of databases at 23andMe reveal that those same alcohol-protective variants have associations with conditions and behaviors that may have nothing to do with alcohol.
Many cancers can be prevented, and others can be detected early in their development, treated and cured.
High school students who reported using cannabis, alcohol, or nicotine were more likely to have thoughts about suicide, feel depressed or anxious, have unusual experiences, and exhibit inattention or hyperactivity, according to recent survey-based study conducted by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the University of Minnesota.
Some people may be physically unable to use the current evidential breath analysis machines, relied upon by police to gather proof of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, new research from the University of Sheffield indicates.
Up to one in four young adults use alcohol and marijuana simultaneously (i.e., use at the same time with overlapping effects), a behavior linked to a greater risk of adverse consequences. Given the expanding legalization of non-medical marijuana use, there is an urgent need to better understand the effects of simultaneous use and who is most vulnerable to adverse outcomes.
It’s “liquid courage,” not necessarily “beer goggles”: New research indicates that consuming alcohol makes you more likely to approach people you already find attractive but does not make others appear more attractive, according to a report in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.
Cranking summer fun up to 11 first requires sensible safeguards against summer hazards. Dr. Stephanie Lareau, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, shares 11 safety tips for keeping summer plans fun and safe.
A new study involving over 700,000 U.S. veterans reports that people who adopt eight healthy lifestyle habits by middle age can expect to live substantially longer than those with few or none of these habits.
Co-existing use of alcohol and cannabis can lead to negative outcomes such as the development of a substance-use disorder, poor academic and occupational performance, and psychiatric disorders when compared to use of either drug alone. New research that examines simultaneous alcohol/cannabis use has found higher levels of drinking after 18 months. These results and others will be shared at the 46th annual scientific meeting of the Research Society on Alcohol (RSA) in Bellevue, Washington.
People who have just one or two drinks per day are not protected against endocrine conditions such as obesity and type 2 diabetes, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
An automated, bilingual, computerized alcohol screening and intervention health tool is effective in reducing alcohol use among Latino emergency department patients in the U.S., according to a study led by the University of California, Irvine. “This is the first bilingual, large-scale, emergency department-based, randomized clinical trial of its kind in the country focused on English- and Spanish-speaking Latino participants,” said lead author Dr.
Heavy alcohol use creates a vicious cycle: It changes signaling pathways in the brain, which in turn affects cognitive functions like decision-making and impulse control — and makes the individual more likely to drink. The mechanism behind this may involve the brain’s immune system, according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York.
New research led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis identifies a common genetic signature that may increase a person’s risk of developing substance use disorders. The work eventually could lead to universal therapies to treat multiple substance use disorders and potentially help people diagnosed with more than one.
In a new preclinical study, scientists at Wake Forest University School of Medicine showed that even modest amounts of alcohol can accelerate brain atrophy, which is the loss of brain cells, and increase the number of amyloid plaques, which are the accumulation of toxic proteins in Alzheimer’s disease.
Danielle Dick, Professor of Psychiatry at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and inaugural director of the Rutgers Addiction Research Center at the Rutgers Brain Health Institute, is available to speak on the benefits of joining the Dry January challenge and steps for…
Youth who underwent metabolic and bariatric surgery as teenagers are at heightened risk for alcohol use, according to the first study to document long-term alcohol use and associated issues in this population. Researchers found that after eight years, nearly half of study participants had alcohol use disorders, symptoms of alcohol-related harm, or alcohol-related problems. Results were published in the journal Annals of Surgery.
Penn State researchers co-led a large genetic study that identified more than 2,300 genes predicting alcohol and tobacco use after analyzing data from more than 3.4 million people. They said a majority of these genes were similar among people with European, African, American and Asian ancestries.
UC San Diego researchers used human brain organoids to study the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on neural development, revealing significant harms in molecular detail.
Two habits are riskier than one when it comes to surgery-related problems, according to a new study of cigarette and alcohol use before an operation. A second study shows coaching about drinking-related surgical risks in the weeks before their operation helped patients cut their drinking in half on average.
Researchers show how major sociopolitical events can have global impacts on sleep that are associated with significant fluctuations in the public’s collective mood, well-being, and alcohol consumption.
Rutgers Institute for Health researchers analyze subgroups of women and how their substance-use patterns and personal characteristics correlate to how they have been impacted by COVID-19.
Fast data processing of overdose deaths, which have increased in recent years, is crucial to developing a rapid public health response. But the system now in place lacks precision and takes months. To correct that, UCLA researchers have developed an automated process that reduces data collection to a few weeks.
They may only be in 4th or 5th grade, but 1 in 10 pre-teen children already say they’re curious about using alcohol or tobacco products, and 1 in 50 say they’re curious about using marijuana, a new study shows.
As many as 3% of the nearly 12,000 9- and 10-year-olds surveyed say they already have a friend who uses one of these substances. And those who said they did were also much more likely to be curious about trying alcohol or tobacco and other nicotine-containing products themselves.
In a pilot study, researchers in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry report that compared to their pre-trial microbiome, men who drank either one alcoholic or non-alcoholic lager daily had a more diverse set of gut microbes, which can reduce the risk for some diseases.
Researchers conducted an original research study utilizing the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER) to compare trends in mortality from alcoholic cirrhosis in the U.S. in 1999 with those 20 years later in 2019.
The developmental changes and growing independence that characterize adolescence and young adulthood can make these stages of life both exciting and challenging. New studies at NUTRITION 2022 LIVE ONLINE shed light on the eating behaviors and diets of teens and young adults around the world.
The more a person stares at themselves while talking with a partner in an online chat, the more their mood degrades over the course of the conversation, a new study finds. Alcohol use appears to worsen this effect.
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