Upward trend in ‘deaths of despair’ linked to drop in religious participation, economist finds

Over the past 20 years, the death rate from drug poisonings in the U.S. has tripled and suicide and alcoholic liver disease death rates have increased by 30 percent — particularly among middle-aged white Americans. Daniel Hungerman, professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame, and his co-authors studied the connection between a sharp downturn of religious participation in the late 1980s and the swift rise in these “deaths of despair” among white Americans ages 45 to 54 in the early 1990s.

Rutgers Addiction Research Expert, Director of the Rutgers Addiction Research Center, Available to Comment on Dry January, Health Benefits and Steps for Success

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…

A ‘factory reset’ for the brain cures anxiety, drinking behavior

Gene editing may be a potential treatment for anxiety and alcohol use disorder in adults who were exposed to binge drinking in their adolescence, according to the results of an animal study published in the journal Science Advances. The researchers used a gene-editing tool called CRISPR-dCas9 in their experiments to manipulate the histone acetylation and methylation processes at the Arc gene in models of adult rats.

Chronic Alcohol Consumption Inhibits Intestinal Absorption of Vitamin B7, May Lead to Deficiency

Article title: Effect of chronic alcohol exposure on gut vitamin B7 uptake: involvement of epigenetic mechanisms and effect of alcohol metabolites Authors: Kalidas Ramamoorthy, Subrata Sabui, Padmanabhan Srinivasan, Saleh Al-Juburi, Quang Pham, Brian D. Chu, Rita D. Simoes, James M.…

Increase in pleasurable effects of alcohol over time can predict alcohol use disorder

A new study out of the University of Chicago Medicine following young adult drinkers for 10 years has found that individuals who reported the highest sensitivity to alcohol’s pleasurable and rewarding effects at the start of the trial were more likely to develop an alcohol use disorder (AUD) over the course of the study.

Alcohol Use Increases among People Living with HIV during Stay-at-home Order

Researchers at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans honed in on one population particularly at risk during the pandemic: people living with HIV with at-risk alcohol use. They surveyed 80 people living with HIV in Louisiana during that state’s stay-at-home order, recruiting participants from the ongoing longitudinal Aging in Louisiana: Immunosenescence, HIV and Socioenvironmental Factors-Exercise (ALIVE-Ex) study.

COVID poses hardships for people with substance abuse problems

FACULTY Q&ABoth fatal and nonfatal overdoses have increased this year compared to last, according to a recent report by the Overdose Data Mapping Application Program. And, anecdotal information suggests that compared to last year, people in recovery are relapsing at alarming rates.Faculty from the University of Michigan School of Nursing’s Center for the Study of Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking and Health discuss why the pandemic has hit people with substance abuse problems especially hard and the expanded role of virtual recovery programs.

Adolescent exposure to anesthetics may cause alcohol use disorder, new research shows

Early exposure to anesthetics may make adolescents more susceptible to developing alcohol use disorder (AUD), according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York.

Study: Teens who have a loving relationship with their mother are less likely to enter abusive relationships

A mother’s warmth and acceptance toward her teenagers may help prevent those children from being in an abusive relationship later in life, even if her own marriage is contentious, according to a new University at Buffalo study.

National focus on overdose prevention should include alcohol too, study suggests

The need to prevent and rapidly treat opioid overdoses is in the spotlight. But a new study suggests more focus is needed on the risk of alcohol overdoses among people who use opioids of all kinds, and other drugs. Ninety percent of residential recovery center patients surveyed had overdosed on alcohol at least once, and 80 percent of them said that at the time of their overdose, they had also been taking other drugs.