Alcoholism
Researchers from Boston University found that multiple types of child maltreatment are robust risk factors for underage binge drinking based on a national multi-year study that explored the influence of social environment on the health of adolescents.
A drug prescribed for male and female infertility and menstrual disorders could hold the key to a more effective treatment for alcoholism, according to a study by researchers at the UCSF-affiliated Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center.
People with mental illness alone are no more likely than anyone else to commit acts of violence.
New research could help explain why some alcoholics are more severe drinkers than others.
Moderate drinkers often have lower risks of Alzheimer's disease and other cognitive loss, according to researchers who reviewed 44 studies.
In more than half of the studies, published since the 1990s, moderate drinkers of wine, beer and liquor had lower dementia risks than nondrinkers. In only a few studies were there increased risks.
More than one-third (35.9 percent) of U.S. adults with alcohol dependence (alcoholism) that began more than one year ago are now in full recovery, according to an article in the current issue of Addiction. The fully recovered individuals show symptoms of neither alcohol dependence nor alcohol abuse and either abstain or drink at levels below those known to increase relapse risk. They include roughly equal proportions of abstainers (18.2 percent) and low-risk drinkers (17.7 percent). The analysis is based on data from the 2001-2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), a project of the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).
While teenagers who drink also tend to have behavior problems, there is more of a genetic basis to their conduct than there is to the lure of alcohol, a new study on 14-year-old Finnish twins reports. The alcohol abuse appears to stem from environmental causes, the researchers say. Many studies have noted a link between bad conduct and alcohol problems, but exactly how they are related is not fully understood. In the past, bad parenting got the brunt of the blame for conduct disorder but it is now recognized that the disorder - like alcoholism in adults - probably also has a genetic cause.
Drunken fruit flies have led to the discovery that insulin may determine susceptibility to alcohol. If confirmed in humans -- and the two species share about two-thirds of their genes -- the finding suggests a promising way to treat alcoholism using drugs that control insulin activity. The UCSF researchers showed that when the normal function of insulin-like molecules in the brain of fruit flies is reduced, the intoxicating effect of alcohol increases. Earlier research has demonstrated that the flies and humans display many of the same vulnerabilities and behavioral responses to alcohol.
Organ damage that goes beyond the liver due to alcoholism is often seen as a barrier to liver transplantation, despite a lack of data on how a transplant affects these complications. A new study describes a patient with alcoholic liver disease complicated by peripheral neuropathy (nerve damage affecting the arms and legs) who underwent a liver transplant and regained almost normal muscle strength.
Inebriated bees could give researchers better insight into alcohol's effects on human behavior, a new study suggests. ''Alcohol affects bees and humans in similar ways -- it impairs motor functioning along with learning and memory processing,'' said Julie Mustard, a study co-author and a postdoctoral researcher in entomology at Ohio State University. ''On the molecular level, the brains of honey bees and humans work the same. Knowing how chronic alcohol use affects genes and proteins in the honey bee brain may help us eventually understand how alcoholism affects memory and behavior in humans, as well as the molecular basis of addiction.''
At present, only two drugs are currently approved for use in the United States for the treatment of alcohol dependence: the opiate antagonist naltrexone and the alcohol-aversive agent disulfiram. A third medication called acamprosate, used in Europe and elsewhere to prevent relapse in alcoholics, is currently under review for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. A new ''proof-of-concept clinical trial'' examines a potential fourth medication -- topiramate -- which can act contemporaneously on more than one neuromodulator of dopamine function. Results indicate that topiramate can reduce consumption and craving in alcohol-dependent patients who are not yet abstinent.
Even though alcohol consumption and alcohol dependence are closely related, the causes of susceptibility to the two are not necessarily the same. A study in the August issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research looks at the genetic and environmental causes of variation in long-term alcohol consumption, and estimates what degree of overlap may exist with causes of susceptibility to alcohol dependence. Results indicate that variation in long-term average alcohol intake is almost entirely due to genetic differences, and that some genes affect both intake and dependence while others affect only dependence.
An estimated 30.8 million American adults (14.8 percent) meet standard diagnostic criteria for at least one personality disorder as defined in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fourth Edition (DSM-IV), according to the results of a new landmark government study.
The FDA today approved the drug Campral (acamprosate), for treating alcohol dependent individuals seeking to continue to remain alcohol-free after they have stopped drinking. Campral may not be effective in patients who are actively drinking at the start of treatment, or in patients who abuse other substances in addition to alcohol. Campral is the first new drug approved for alcohol abuse in a decade.
Pregnant women who abuse alcohol may reduce the risk of birth defects in their babies by taking antioxidants during pregnancy, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study indicates.
The new research found a 36 percent reduction in limb malformations in the offspring of pregnant mice exposed to ethanol and at the same time given a newly developed antioxidant compound called EUK-134.
