Addiction | Addiction Treatment Strategies

Lasting Brain Changes Discovered In Underage Binge Drinkers

CHAPEL HILL – Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have discovered a gene variant that may protect against alcoholism.
The variant, in a gene called CYP2E1, is associated with a person’s response to alcohol. For the ten to twenty percent of people that possess this variant, those first few drinks leave them feeling more inebriated than the rest of the human population, who harbor a different version of the gene.
Previous studies had shown that people who react strongly to alcohol were less likely to become alcoholics later in life, but the genetic basis of this finding was not clear….

The popular, formerly caffeinated, fruity alcoholic beverage, Four Loko, has been blamed for a spike in alcohol-related hospitalizations, especially throughout college campuses.
 Initially, caffeine was deemed the culprit and the Food and Drug Administration ordered all traces of caffeine to be removed from Four Loko and all other similar beverages. However, according to an upcoming evaluation in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, caffeine might not be the primary cause of the spike in hospitalizations.
“Four Loko didn’t have the extraordinary intoxicating effect…

A new study of teens undergoing substance abuse treatment finds helping others helps the adolescent helper by reducing cravings for alcohol and drugs, a major precipitator of relapse. These novel findings stem from the “Helping Others” study led by Maria Pagano, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
 
Results of this large investigation involving 195 substance dependent juvenile offenders reveal that helping others in 12-step programs significantly improves adolescent treatment response. Featured in the November issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, this…

DrugScope has responded to a joint report on new drugs published by Europol, the European law enforcement agency, and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. The two agencies state that a total of 41 new psychoactive substances were officially reported across Europe in 2010. This is almost double the 24 reported in 2009.
Most new drugs are slight modifications of the chemical structures of known substances such as ecstasy or amphetamine. While ‘designer’ drugs are not a new concept, the report suggests there is now an ever greater interaction between the illicit and non-illicit pharmaceutical markets….

Heavy alcohol consumption may be linked to a greater risk of developing lung cancer, while higher BMI and increased consumption of black tea and fruit are associated with lower risk of the deadly disease. In three separate studies presented at CHEST 2011, the 77th annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP), heavy alcohol consumption was related to increased risk of lung cancer, while specific ethnic groups, including African American men and Asian women, had slightly higher risks for lung cancer. Conversely, black tea consumption was shown to reduce lung cancer risk in nonsmoking women, while higher BMI and increased…

The number of alcohol-related hospital admissions in England has exceeded one million in a year for the first time, a report has found.
Figures compiled by the NHS Information Centre for the year 2009-2010 revealed 1,057,000 hospital visits in relation to alcohol, a 12% increase on the previous year and more than double the amount recorded in 2002-2003.
The statistics, which cover the period of April 2009 to the end of March 2010, were published today in the NHS IC’s annual report, Statistics on Alcohol: England 2011.
A breakdown of the figures showed that 63% of the hospital admissions were for men and found that there were higher…

In children, the brain is in a constant state of flux as it analyzes and evaluates stimuli from the environment. Fetal alcohol exposure and ADHD represent two disorders that can affect children’s ability to learn and process information from a very young age.
 Both ADHD and fetal alcohol exposure are linked to poor academic performance in cognition and attention, so the researchers decided to try to pinpoint the exact brain areas affected by each disorder with the hope that this research could lead to the creation and development of new and improved treatments.
The results will be published in the March 2011 issue of Alcoholism:…

Question: What do they mean when after being sober for years, if you start drinking again, your drinking will take off as though you haven’t been dry at all? In fact some say that it is worse, like if you were drinking all those dry years too. I am not planning to do this but a couple of members in my AA group described this, and I just wanted to check it out. I also wonder if you could explain why this happens?
Answer: Your friends represent the profound wisdom of AA. Over the years and with thousands and thousand of years in recovery, it has been observed that when the occasional person who, after many years of abstinence from alcohol,…

Parents Key In Keeping Kids Off Of Alcohol