These data indicate that abstinence from moderate alcohol drinking increases hippocampal neurogenesis, cingulate NG2 differentiation, and SN undifferentiated cell proliferation in both males and females. Such cellular alteration during abstinence could contribute to the spontaneous partial restoration of cognitive deficits upon sobriety.
An international website dedicated to providing current information on news, reports, publications,and peer-reviewed research articles concerning alcoholism and alcohol-related problems throughout the world. Postings are provided by international contributors who monitor news, publications and research findings in their country, geographical region or program area of interest. All postings are entered without editorial or contributor opinion or comment.
Aims
For full versions of posted research articles readers are encouraged to email requests for "electronic reprints" (text file, PDF files, FAX copies) to the corresponding or lead author, who is highlighted in the posting.
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Saturday, December 13, 2008
These data indicate that abstinence from moderate alcohol drinking increases hippocampal neurogenesis, cingulate NG2 differentiation, and SN undifferentiated cell proliferation in both males and females. Such cellular alteration during abstinence could contribute to the spontaneous partial restoration of cognitive deficits upon sobriety.
The Journal of Behavioral Health Services and Research Online First December 11, 2008
Recent emphases on increasing accountability, using less intensive settings, and implementing evidence-based services helped to focus the research community on the structure, processes, and outcomes of services delivered to substance abuse clients. Considerably less attention has been given to understanding how to structure services to enhance engagement and retention leading to treatment continuity.
This study examined structural characteristics of community-based treatment facilities in relationship to the availability of supportive services within a sample of 1,332 substance abuse treatment programs surveyed through the Alcohol and Drug Services Study in 1996 and 1997.
Structural and client characteristics are important predictors of added supportive services. Furthermore, a program with a broader and established set of core services is more likely to have expanded supportive services.
These findings have implications for public health professionals, both in terms of ensuring sustainable service programming for these chronic clients and in identifying services to adopt or discard to meet a population with multiple needs.
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Request Reprint E-Mail: peter.delany@samhsa.hhs.gov
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By Thelma Etim BBC News, Hampshire
At the age of 12, Alan, (not his real name) had drunk himself unconscious and was being revived by paramedics after attending a friend's birthday party.
He had drunk a bottle of vodka, along with half a bottle of Martini.
But he had already been consuming huge amounts of alcohol for a year before that watershed incident brought his problem to the attention of his shocked parents.
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Friday, December 12, 2008
Adverse childhood events were associated with familial alcoholism and with early and binge drinking, and therefore, we controlled for these potential confounders. Experiencing 2 or more adverse childhood events, compared with none, significantly increased the risk for alcohol dependence, even after we controlled for sociodemographic variables and disorder-specific potential confounders not considered in the extant literature
Thursday, December 11, 2008
10 December 2008
Eleven London boroughs will each receive £30,000 to tackle specific local troublespots of alcohol-related crime and disorder.
WASHINGTON -- There are signs that the ongoing decline in teen marijuana use in recent years has stalled; however the downward trend in cigarette and alcohol use continues, according to the 2008 Monitoring the Future (MTF) Survey.
AJPH First Look, published online ahead of print Nov 13, 2008
We compared the influence of substance abuse with that of other comorbidities (e.g., anxiety, HIV) among people with mood disorder (N = 129 524) to explore risk factors for psychiatric hospitalization and early readmission within 3 months of discharge.
After linking Medicaid claims data in 5 states (California, Florida, New Jersey, New York, and Texas) to community-level information, we used logistic and Cox regression to examine hospitalization risk factors.
Twenty-four percent of beneficiaries with mood disorder were hospitalized. Of these, 24% were rehospitalized after discharge. Those with comorbid substance abuse accounted for 36% of all baseline hospitalizations and half of all readmissions.
Results highlight the need for increased and sustained funding for the treatment of comorbid substance abuse and mood disorder, and for enhanced partnership between mental health and substance abuse professionals.
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Request Reprint E-Mail: jdprince@rci.rutgers.edu
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- “Development of the American Indian Enculturation Scale to Assist Counseling Practice,”
- “The Changing Patterns of Drug Use among American Indian Students Over the Past 30 Years,” and
- “Strong Navajo Marriages.”
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Wave 2 Data Sheds Further Light on 5 Subtypes
December 9, 2008 (Boca Raton, Florida) — New findings from 2 waves of the National Epidemiological Study on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) community survey are changing clinicians' understanding of alcohol dependence, researchers say.
Presented here at the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry 19th Annual Meeting and Symposium, Howard B. Moss, MD, from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, in Bethesda, Maryland, described how NESARC data identified 5 subtypes of alcohol-dependent drinkers and the more recent wave 2 data shed light on recovery, remission, and treatment seeking.
The data show that rather than being solely a disease of middle-aged men, more than half of alcohol-dependent individuals are young adults. In addition, only half of alcoholics have a family history of the disease, said Dr. Moss.
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Tuesday, December 9, 2008
By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent
08 Dec 2008
An alcohol tolerance gene has been identified by scientists which could eventually lead to a test to see how well people can hold their drink.
Researchers also believe that the breakthrough could help identify people who are more susceptible to alcohol abuse later in life.
The team looked at how strongly people were affected by drinking in terms of body sway, co-ordination problems and feeling "high", and pinpointed the stretch of DNA that appeared to determine it.
According to the findings people who show little response to alcohol have a higher likelihood of alcohol dependence and abuse and this is influenced by genetics.
Drinkers who show a low level of response to alcohol can consume more before feeling the effects of intoxication and are more likely to succumb to alcoholism.
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Eds. Johan Edman & Kerstin Stenius
The aim of this volume is to picture the character and dynamics of the alcohol and drug treatment systems in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. How and why have new ideas and institutions emerged during its history? Who have been the actors and what have been the structures behind changes or resistance to change? What can explain the continuities and the reforms?
Contents
A Frame
Kerstin Stenius & Johan Edman
Idealistic Doctors. Alcoholism Treatment Institutions in Sweden 1885-1916
Anna Prestjan
From Gold Cure to Antabuse. Danish Treatment Traditions in a Liberal Drinking Culture
Sidsel Eriksen
“You Take a Sick Man and Put Him in Hospital”. Treatment of Excessive Drinkers in Norway in the 1930s
Olav Hamran
In the Faint Shadow of Prohibition. The First Finnish Alcoholics Act of 1936
Kerstin Stenius
Conservatism and Social Control. Treatment with Disulfiram in Denmark, 1945-2005
Henrik Thiesen
Treatment as Adaptation. A-clinics in Post-War Finland
Jukka Ahonen
On the Demise of the Norwegian Vagrancy Act
Ragnar Hauge
From Hard Labour to Unemployment. The Crisis of Work Policy within the Treatment of Alcohol Abusers in Sweden and Norway during the 1970s
Johan Edman & Olav Hamran
A Crutch for Cripples or a Shield for the Endangered? The Temporary Decline in Compulsory Care within Swedish Alcohol Treatment during the 1970s
Johan Edman
The American Package. Acceptance of Alcoholism Treatment as a Problem Solution in Iceland in the Last Quarter of the 20th Century
Hildigunnur Ólafsdóttir
After the Storm. Developments in Maintenance Treatment Policy and Practice in Sweden 1987–2006
Björn Johnson
Medicalisation with a Focus on Injecting Drug Users. Changes in the Norwegian Treatment System from the 1990s
Astrid Skretting
Professional Expertise versus Market Mechanisms in Contemporary Denmark
Mads Uffe Pedersen
From Sanatoriums to Public Injection Rooms. Actors, Ideas and Institutions in the Nordic Treatment Systems
Johan Edman & Kerstin Stenius
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Nosam publishes news and information on alcohol policy and alcohol marketing in the Nordic countries. The pages cover news as well as more static background infomation concerning the Nordic countries’ alcohol policy systems, for example facts about state policies in different countries. Nosam links to different organisations and institutions that deal with alcohol policy matters. Nosam serves an important purpose by its numerous links to other sources of information; documents, press releases, institutions, legal acts...etc. Further information is always available just a click away from the main page.
NOVEMBER 2008
18/11 EP votes to reduce traveller allowances by 50%
18/11 Higher taxes on alcohol in Finland
5/11 EU: relaxed rules on low alcohol wines
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Meeting in Riga 25-26.2.2009
The space for alcohol policy-making has changed due to what is often referred to as the process of globalization. By international agreements politics looses its geographical boundaries and is governed by aims of pacts tied for reasons of economic competitiveness in a global context. These types of actions for liberalizing trade have some evident and serious side effects on the public health policy field. One notable structural change has been the so called judicialisation of politics, where international courts make decisions that have direct impact on the space for action in issues of public health. Judges in international courts decide on matters that used to be on the tables of national or local politicians.
It is becoming more evident that in order to know the alcohol policy field in Europe of today one needs to be acquainted with the logics of EC law, EFTA and WTO. Taking this assumption as a starting point the Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services is arranging a seminar about EC Law and international trade agreements’ impact on public health, with alcohol policy as a special focus. The meeting, which will take place in Riga in February 2009, is co-arranged with the Nordic Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research (NAD, Nordic Centre for Welfare and Social issues). The target audience is European civil servants, researchers and policy makers, especially in the geographical area of the Northern Dimension Partnership (NDPHS, http://www.ndphs.org/).
The programme is structured around presentations by specialists of trade agreements, EC law as well as public health and alcohol policy. The seminar will for example discuss policy processes at an EU level, and will present special cases of monopolies, alcohol marketing and cross border trade. It will offer an opportunity to get insights in the larger processes that shape everyday policy making.
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Models, implications and meanings of alcohol and drug treatment systems
A thematic meeting of the Kettil Bruun Society for Social and Epidemiological Research on Alcohol, Stockholm, Sweden, 7-9 October 2009
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Monday, December 8, 2008
By Stephen Adams
08 Dec 2008
French cardiologist Dr Olivier Ameisen tested out baclofen on himself and was amazed by the effect it had on reducing his drinking.
Baclofen, which is commonly used to treat muscle spasms, appears to suppress the craving for alcohol.
Dr Ameisen, 55, has written a book about his discovery, called Le Dernier Verre (The Last Glass) which is proving a publishing hit in France. It comes out in English next month.
In it, he calls for clinical trials to test his theory.
But some specialists believe it is "extremely irresponsible" to tell people that alcoholism - a physical, social and psychological condition - can be treated with a simple drug.
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PNAS Published online before print December 8, 2008
As with other genetically complex common psychiatric and medical conditions, multiple genetic and environmental components contribute to alcohol use disorders (AUDs), which can confound attempts to identify genetic components.
Intermediate phenotypes are often more closely correlated with underlying biology and have often proven invaluable in genetic studies. Level of response (LR) to alcohol is an intermediate phenotype for AUDs, and individuals with a low LR are at increased risk.
A high rate of concurrent alcohol and nicotine use and dependence suggests that these conditions may share biochemical and genetic mechanisms. Genetic association studies indicate that a genetic locus, which includes the CHRNA5-CHRNA3-CHRNB4 gene cluster, plays a role in nicotine consumption and dependence. Genetic association with alcohol dependence was also recently shown.
We show here that two of the markers from the nicotine studies also show an association (multiple testing corrected P < 0.025) with several LR phenotypes in a sample of 367 siblings. Additional markers in the region were analyzed and shown to be located in a 250-kb expanse of high linkage disequilibrium containing three additional genes.
These findings indicate that LR intermediate phenotypes have utility in genetic approaches to AUDs and will prove valuable in the identification of other genetic loci conferring susceptibility to AUDs.
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Request Rprint E-Mail: rwhite@gallo.ucsf.edu
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• In line with international evidence, respondents recognised that a number of external factors increase the quantity of alcohol consumed: low prices and discounts (80% thought this increases consumption); large measures (75%); allowing street drinking (68%); advertising (56%) and extended drinking hours (54%).
• Nearly half of participants avoided the town centre at night because of the drunken behaviour of others, and half felt that action was needed to tackle alcohol issues in their area.
• Fewer than half of respondents felt that information on alcohol-related harm (36%) or advice from a GP (48%) would decrease alcohol consumption.
• Nearly three in ten of the respondents drank at hazardous or harmful levels1, which when extrapolated to the whole population, suggests an estimated 1.33 million adults in the North West drink at such levels. Alcohol intake was high across all population segments, although the type of alcohol consumed showed strong socioeconomic gradients, with wine drinking associated with less deprived communities and beer or cider intake higher in more deprived locations.
• Very few people felt that the health risks of alcohol were exaggerated. Although only 7% felt that they did not know enough about the health risks, this was higher among harmful drinkers (11%). More than two in five drinkers were concerned about the impact of their drinking on their weight. In particular, those drinking hazardously (58%) and harmfully (60%) were most likely to feel this way. Such health concerns should be used to tailor brief interventions, health messages and campaigns.
• People who drink harmfully were six times more likely to say that alcohol relieves boredom or that it helps them to forget their problems compared with sensible drinkers.Such motivations should be considered when seeking to address alcohol misuse.
Read Full Publication
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Sunday, December 7, 2008
Drug and Alcohol Dependence Volume 99, Issues 1-3, 1 January 2009, Pages 280-295
Alcohol screening and brief interventions in medical settings can significantly reduce alcohol use. Corresponding data for illicit drug use is sparse. A Federally funded screening, brief interventions, referral to treatment (SBIRT) service program, the largest of its kind to date, was initiated by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in a wide variety of medical settings. We compared illicit drug use at intake and 6 months after drug screening and interventions were administered.
Of 459,599 patients screened, 22.7% screened positive for a spectrum of use (risky/problematic, abuse/addiction). The majority were recommended for a brief intervention (15.9%), with a smaller percentage recommended for brief treatment (3.2%) or referral to specialty treatment (3.7%). Among those reporting baseline illicit drug use, rates of drug use at 6-month follow-up (4 of 6 sites), were 67.7% lower and heavy alcohol use was 38.6% lower ), with comparable findings across sites, gender, race/ethnic, age subgroups. Among persons recommended for brief treatment or referral to specialty treatment, self-reported improvements in general health ), mental health , employment , housing status , and criminal behavior were found.
SBIRT was feasible to implement and the self-reported patient status at 6 months indicated significant improvements over baseline, for illicit drug use and heavy alcohol use, with functional domains improved, across a range of health care settings and a range of patients.
Request Reprint E-Mail: bertha_madras@hms.harvard.edu
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By Tshepo Mongwa SEROWE -
Alcoholism is a chronic condition of drinking liquor at a level that interferes with an individual’s physical, mental, health as well as social, family and job obligations.
However, the problem can be reversed for as long as one adheres to advice and procedures followed in overcoming alcoholism.
A medical doctor at the Sekgoma Memorial Hospital in Serowe, Dr Biyangidiki Finini said the first step in overcoming alcoholism is for one to acknowledge that they have a drinking problem.
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2008 .Vol No.231
Alcohol and Alcoholism 2008 43(6):630-635
The aim of this study was to assess the impact of cues that signal the alcoholic strength of a beverage on drinking rate in young social drinkers.
In both experiments, participants took significantly longer to consume the 7% drink compared with the 3% drink, and the total inter-sip interval was longer for the 7% drink. These effects were most closely related to the participants’ changing estimates of alcohol strength across the test session, alongside concomitant changes in various aspects of self-reported mood. Sensory and hedonic evaluations of the drinks did not affect drinking behaviour in either experiment.
The findings suggest that the consumption rate of an alcoholic beverage can be modulated by its alcohol content, and that the perceived pharmacological effect of the alcohol serves as an effective signal to alter drinking behaviour.
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Request Reprint E-Mail: s.higgs.1@bham.ac.uk
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