January 2008 conference, Engaging States and Local Communities in Prevention Policies

Sunday - Wednesday, January 27 - 30, 2008
The Bahia Resort Hotel, Mission Bay, San Diego, California

Call for presentation proposals

Deadline: Monday, August 20, 2007

The California Council on Alcohol Policy (Cal Council), a statewide non-profit uses education, community organizing and public policy to reduce the problems associated with alcohol that impact our communities. We are pleased to sponsor the January 2008 conference, Engaging States and Local Communities in Prevention Policies. This conference is the 14th in a series of national and regional meetings that address research, policy, and prevention issues related to alcohol. We welcome an anticipated attendance of up to 300 participants including community-based practitioners, public officials, and researchers from across the North America and beyond.

Contributor: Tom Colthurst

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Alcohol Metabolism Part II: A Key to Unlocking Alcohol’s Effects
Volume 30, Number 1, 2007

3 In This Issue [PDF]

5	The Genetics of Alcohol Metabolism: Role of Alcohol Dehydrogenase and Aldehyde Dehydrogenase Variants [PDF] Howard J. Edenberg
38	Alcohol Metabolism and Cancer Risk [PDF] Helmut K. Seitz and Peter Becker
48	Role of Alcohol Metabolism in Chronic Pancreatitis [PDF] Alain Vonlaufen, Jeremy S. Wilson, Romano C. Pirola, and Minoti V. Apte
55	Effects of Pregnancy and Nutritional Status on Alcohol Metabolism [PDF] Kartik Shankar, Martin J.J. Ronis, and Thomas M. Badger

14	Variations in ADH and ALDH in Southwest California Indians [PDF] Cindy L. Ehlers
18	Health-Related Effects of Genetic Variations of Alcohol-Metabolizing Enzymes in African Americans [PDF] Denise M. Scott and Robert E. Taylor
22	ALDH2, ADH1B, and ADH1C Genotypes in Asians: A Literature Review [PDF] Mimy Y. Eng, Susan E. Luczak, and Tamara L. Wall
28	Variations in Alcohol-Metabolizing Enzymes in People of East Indian and African Descent from Trinidad and Tobago [PDF] Shelley Moore, L.K. Montane-Jaime, Lucinda G. Carr, and Cindy L. Ehlers
32	Glossary [PDF]

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A key role for corticotropin-releasing factor in alcohol dependence
Trends in Neurosciences Article in Press, Corrected Proof 16 July 2007



Recent data indicate that alcohol dependence induces long-term neuroadaptations that recruit a negative emotional state. This leads to excessive alcohol ingestion motivated by relief of negative emotionality.

A key mechanism in this transition to negative reinforcement is a recruitment of corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) signaling within the amygdala.

Long term upregulation of CRF₁ receptors is observed in the amygdala following a history of dependence, and CRF antagonists selectively block emotionality, excessive alcohol drinking and stress-induced reinstatement of alcohol-seeking in post-dependent animals. Innate upregulation of CRF₁ receptor expression mimics the post-dependent phenotype, both with regard to emotional responses and ethanol self-administration.

Therefore, the CRF system is emerging as a key element of the neuroadaptive changes driving alcoholism and as a major target for its treatment.

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Reprint Request E-Mail: markus.heilig@mail.nih.gov
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News and Notes from the General Service Office of A.A.®
Vol. 53, No.3 June-July 2007

• 57th General Service Conference

• 2007 Conference Advisory Actions and Additional Considerations

• Estimates of Groups and Membersas of January 1, 2007

• Reports From G.S.O., the General Service Board, and Trustees’ Committees

• Reports from the A.A. Grapevine

• The Budget Highlights

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Trajectories of Alcohol Consumption among Older Japanese Followed from 1987—1999
Research on Aging, Vol. 29, No. 4, 323-347 (2007)








This study examined the longitudinal changes in alcohol consumption among elderly Japanese, characterized the subtrajectories within the aggregate trend, and examined potential predictors of these trajectories.

Alcohol use appears relatively stable between ages 60 and 70, but declines thereafter.

Further, there are three subtrajectories: stable, declining, and curvilinear (in addition to abstainers). Predictors of these trajectories varied by trajectory.

Alcohol use may continue to be an important part of life at older ages. However, older drinkers appear to follow four drinking trajectories.

Demographic characteristics and stressors may be associated with these trajectories. Knowledge of these trajectories may aid in targeting of interventions.

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Reprint Request E-Mail: gilgee@umich.edu
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Smoking, alcohol and gastric cancer risk in Korean men: the National Health Insurance Corporation Study
British Journal of Cancer advance online publication 17 July 2007;






We investigated the risk of gastric cancer by subsite in relation to cigarette smoking and alcohol in a large population-based cohort of 669 570 Korean men in an insurance plan followed for an average 6.5 years,

A moderate association was found between smoking, cardia and upper-third and distal cancers.

We also found a positive association between alcohol consumption and distal and total gastric cancer.

Combined exposure to high levels of tobacco and alcohol increased the risk estimates further; cardia and upper-third gastric cancers were more strongly related to smoking status than distal gastric cancer.

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Reprint Request E-Mail: kschoi@ncc.re.kr
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Alcohol and Aggression: A Test of the Attention-Allocation Model
Psychological Science 18 (7), 649–655.



This article presents the first systematic test of the attention-allocation model for alcohol-related aggression. According to this model, alcohol has a "myopic" effect on attentional capacity that presumably facilitates aggression by focusing attention on more salient provocative, rather than less salient inhibitory, cues in hostile situations.

Aggression was assessed using a laboratory task in which mild electric shocks were received from, and administered to, a fictitious opponent.

Study 1 demonstrated that a moderate-load cognitive distractor suppressed aggression in intoxicated subjects (to levels even lower than those exhibited by a placebo control group).

Study 2 assessed how varying the magnitude of a distracting cognitive load affected aggression in the alcohol and placebo conditions.

Results indicated that the moderate-load distraction used in Study 1 (i.e., holding four elements in sequential order in working memory) suppressed aggression best. Cognitive loads of larger and smaller magnitudes were not successful in attenuating aggression.


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Reprint Request E-Mail: peter@email.uky.edu.
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The Effect of Alcohol Prohibition on Alcohol Consumption:
Evidence from Drunkenness Arrests
Economics Letters, Volume 86, Issue 2, February 2005, Pages 279-284





We examine the relationship between Prohibition and alcohol consumption using city level drunkenness arrests. We find that Prohibition had a substantial short-term but little long-term impact. The implied pattern of alcohol consumption is similar to that suggested by cirrhosis.

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Fraternity Membership and Drinking Behavior
NBER Working Paper No. 13262
Issued in July 2007

This paper estimates the impact of fraternity and sorority membership on a wide array of drinking outcomes among respondents to four Harvard College Alcohol Study surveys from 1993-2001.

Identification is achieved by including proxies for specific types of unobserved heterogeneity expected to influence the relationship. These include high school and parental drinking behaviors to account for time-invariant omitted factors, and assessed importance of drinking-related activities and reasons for drinking to control for changes in preferences since starting college. Self-selection is quantitatively important.

But even controlling for variables plausibly affected by fraternity membership, such as current alcohol use categorization (from abstainer to heavy drinker) and time spent socializing, fraternity membership has a large impact on drinking intensity, frequency and recency, as well as various negative drinking consequences that potentially carry negative externalities.


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Reprint Request E-Mail: desimon@coba.usf.edu

Alcoholism in women: is it different in onset and outcome compared to men?
European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, online 14 July 2007



Onset and course of alcohol dependence show gender related differences (telescoping effect) suggesting that women are more vulnerable to chronic alcohol consumption. This raises the question whether the differences are associated with a different treatment outcome as well.

We hypothesized, that alcohol dependent women with a telescoping course show a less favourable treatment outcome compared to men.

Overall, we confirm the telescoping effect, a faster progression in the course of alcoholism (developmental events and adverse consequences) in women compared to men (“telescoping effect”).

However, despite the telescoping effect treatment outcome was similar in women and men. During the inpatient treatment program no alcohol relapse occurred.

Throughout the 12 months outpatient treatment we found no significant differences in the survival analysis between women (283.29 ± 11.26 days) and men (284.72 ± 12.16 days). At the end of the 12 months both groups had an abstinence rate of approximately 50% and a drop-out rate of 33%.

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Reprint Request E-Mail: sucht@zi-mannheim.de
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A Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Pilot Trial of Quetiapine for the Treatment of Type A and Type B Alcoholism.
Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology. 27(4):344-351, August 2007.




Atypical antipsychotics may be useful in the treatment of alcohol dependence. Human trials suggest that atypical antipsychotics may reduce alcohol craving and consumption, especially among patients with comorbid psychopathology. Therefore, these medications may be more useful for treating more severely affected alcoholics, such as patients with Type B alcoholism.

Type B alcoholics are characterized by an early age of onset of problem drinking, high severity of alcohol dependence, increased psychopathology, and treatment-resistance. Quetiapine is an atypical antipsychotic with a favorable side effect profile, and may be a promising medication for the treatment of alcohol dependence, particularly Type B alcoholism.

Forty-seven patients (77%) completed the trial, with no significant between-group differences in treatment retention. Nine quetiapine-treated patients (31%) maintained complete abstinence compared with 2 placebo-treated patients (6%).

There was a significant interaction between quetiapine and alcoholic subtype. As predicted, quetiapine- versus placebo-treated Type B alcoholics had significantly fewer days of drinking and fewer days of heavy drinking. Alcohol craving was also significantly reduced in quetiapine-treated compared with placebo-treated Type B alcoholics.

Among Type A alcoholics, quetiapine provided no advantage over placebo in improving drinking outcomes.

Quetiapine may be effective for the treatment of alcohol dependence, particularly in the more complicated Type B, early-onset alcoholics.

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Reprint Request E-Mail: Kampman_K@mail.trc.upenn.edu
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Genetic polymorphisms in alcohol metabolism, alcohol intake and the risk of stomach cancer in Warsaw, Poland
International Journal of Cancer Early View 13 Jul 2007
Genetic variations increasing blood levels of acetaldehyde, the first metabolite of alcohol, refrain their carriers from drinking alcohol but may also put them at increased risk of cancer because of the mutagenic and carcinogenic effect of acetaldehyde.

In a population-based study of 305 cases and 428 controls in Warsaw, Poland, we evaluated the effect of polymorphisms in alcohol metabolizing genes, including ADH1B (Ex9+5C>T, Ex3+23A>G, Ex3+58A>T and Ex9+77A>G), ADH1C (Ex8-56A>G and Ex6-14G>A) and ALDH2 (Ex1+82A>G), on levels of alcohol drinking and susceptibility of stomach cancer.

We found that among control subjects frequency of alcohol drinking varied by alcohol metabolizing genotype. In particular, the weekly consumption of individuals carrying the AA, GA and GG genotypes of ALDH2 Ex1+82A >G polymorphism were 3.75, 2.26 and 1.53 drinks, respectively (p= 0.04). However, none of the assessed polymorphisms in these 3 genes had a measurable effect on stomach cancer risk.

When stratified by ALDH2 Ex1+82A>G polymorphism, alcohol-related increases in stomach cancer risk were restricted to individuals with the AG/GG genotypes, with a more than 2-fold risk among daily drinkers and 3-fold risk among those with 40 or more drink-years.

In summary, our results suggested that the ALDH2 Ex1+82 G allele may be functionally deficient in eliminating acetaldehyde and discourage alcohol drinking. Furthermore, heavy drinkers of alcohol who were genetically prone to accumulate acetaldehyde may face an increased risk of stomach cancer.

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Reprint Request E-Mail: fazhang@hsc.unt.edu
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News Release - Nationwide Survey Shows Most Illicit Drug Users and Heavy Alcohol Users Are in the Workplace and May Pose Special Problems

7/16/2007

Most of the nation’s approximately 16.4 million current illicit drug users and approximately 15 million heavy alcohol users hold full-time jobs, according to a new study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

The study, Worker Substance Use and Workplace Policies and Programs, shows that substance use can pose significant risks to workers’ health and productivity. The report also says that workers who use illicit drugs are less likely than nonusers to be employed by companies that have drug or alcohol testing policies and programs.
. . . . . .

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Worker Substance Use and Workplace Policies and Programs

This report presents findings on substance use among workers and on workplace drug policy and programs from the 2002, 2003, and 2004 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health (NSDUHs). NSDUH is an annual survey of the civilian, noninstitutionalized population of the United States aged 12 years or older. The survey is sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) to provide data on substance use and related issues among the U.S. population.

NSDUH collects information on employment status, type of business, specific occupations and industries, and information on drug-testing policies and programs from U.S. workers. This report analyzes the worker information in conjunction with the substance use data collected in the survey to investigate substance use among full-time employed U.S. workers aged 18 to 64 during the period 2002 to 2004.

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Screening and Brief Alcohol Interventions in Underage and Young Adult Populations (R01)

Program Announcement (PA) Number: PA-07-406

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) issued by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), is to encourage research grant applications on screening and brief interventions to prevent and/or reduce alcohol use and its adverse consequences.

This FOA is designed to stimulate a developmentally grounded program of research on screening and brief interventions to prevent and/or reduce underage drinking and hazardous young adult drinking.

Research objectives of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) include, but are not limited to: (1) testing strategies to improve screening methods for youth with or at high risk for alcohol-related problems; (2) testing the efficacy and effectiveness of novel or modified existing brief prevention interventions to: (a) prevent or delay the initiation of alcohol use, or (b) decrease the risk for the development of alcohol use disorders (AUDs) and associated problems among youth; (3) examining individual, peer, familial, community, setting, cultural, or other contextual factors that affect the selection, implementation, and outcomes of empirically validated screening measures or brief interventions.

Studies of racially and ethnically diverse populations in various social and cultural settings are encouraged. Investigations must be especially sensitive to unique human subject issues when conducting research in minors.

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Alcohol Use: international conference "Correlates and Consequences"

29.06.2006

The international conference took place at the First Medical Faculty of Charles University in Prague, on June 29th, 2006. The principal speech was given by Dr. Isidor Obot (Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, WHO Geneva).

Published by: PhDr. Matúš Šucha

The one-day conference was organised by the Centre for Addictology and its partners. In addition to the principal speech, leading Czech and Slovak scientists in addictology presented their papers, among them Dr. Lubomir Okruhlica (Slovakia), Prof. Tomas Zima (Dean of the First Medical Faculty, Charles University), and Dr. Ludek Kubicka (Psychiatric Centre Prague).

The conference was opened with welcoming speeches by Prof. Tomas Zima, Dr. Alena Steflova (head of the WHO office in the Czech Republic), and Ms. Nina Janyskova (drug policy coordinator of the capital city Prague). The conference was held under the auspices of the Mayor of Prague, Pavel Bem, and the governor of the Central Bohemia region, Petr Bendl
. . . . .

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Nutrition and Alcohol-Related Health Outcomes (R03)

Program Announcement (PA) Number: PA-07-404

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) issued by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Cancer Institute and Office of Dietary Supplements, National Institutes of Health, solicits Research Grant (R03) applications from institutions/organizations that propose to examine associations between nutrition and alcohol-related health outcomes in humans and animal models.

The goal of this program announcement is to stimulate a broad range of research on the role of nutrition in the development, prevention, and treatment of a variety of alcohol-related health outcomes including alcohol dependence and psychiatric co-morbidities, chronic and acute diseases, and organ function and damage.

Study designs may include biomedical research, epidemiologic approaches, and intervention studies.

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Informative phenotypes for genetic studies of psychiatric disorders
American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics Volume 144B, Issue 5 , Pages 581 - 588



Despite its initial promise, there has been both progress and some set backs in genetic studies of the major psychiatric disorders of childhood and adulthood. Finding true susceptibility genes may be delayed because the most genetically informative phenotypes are not being used on a regular basis in linkage analysis and association studies. It is highly likely that using alternative phenotypes instead of DSM diagnostic categories will lead more rapid success in the search for these susceptibility genes.

The objective of this paper is to describe the different types of informative phenotypes that can be employed in psychiatric genetic studies, to clarify their uses, to identify several methodologic issues the design and conduct of linkage and association studies that use alternative phenotypes and finally to suggest possible solutions to those difficulties.

This is a conceptual review with a focus on methodological issues that may arise in psychiatric genetics and examples are taken from the literature on autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and alcoholism.

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Reprint Request E-Mail: szatmar@mcmaster.ca
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Kenya: Alcohol Guidelines Proof of Regulation Failure

Opinion

Charles Maringo
Nairobi

The recent guidelines for alcohol business cannot go unchallenged.

First, there is no such thing as responsible drinking! Consuming alcohol products at the age of 18 and above does not make alcohol safer. Whichever way you look at it, alcohol is an addictive drug. Just like a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, the road to alcoholism and related consequences commences with a sip, a glass, a bottle, several bottles and whisky.

Finally, it leads to illicit brews as the habit becomes too expensive to maintain. Throughout the journey, there are direct and indirect costs individuals, families and society bear. The guidelines clearly demonstrate why the industry cannot regulate itself.

At best, they are weak, misleading, non-binding and meaningless. They give a false perception of the industry concerns about the effects of their products. In essence, this is just a cleverly thought out alcohol public relations exercise. The idea is an industry-driven attempt to forestall Government regulation. It is rather coincidental that the guidelines have coincided with the gazettement of Nacada, the Government agency mandated to handle all issues concerning drug use and abuse, to a full parastatal and the development of an alcohol policy.
. . . . .

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Alcohol Pricing and Public Health in Canada: Issues and Opportunities



While the price of alcoholic beverages has been identified as a major determinant of the extent of alcohol-related problems, alcohol taxes have rarely been used in any systematic way to achieve public health and safety objectives. This paper examines the operation of alcohol taxes in Canada from a health perspective, and identifies a number of opportunities for protecting the health and safety of the population through ‘discerning and purposeful’ reforms of taxation and pricing policies.

. . . . .

The complexity of current alcohol pricing and taxation systems in Canada creates an excellent opportunity for the implementation of new, more efficient systems in which prices and taxes are used in a “purposeful and discerning manner” in the interests of health and safety, while maintaining the social and economic benefits derived from the responsible production, sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages in Canada.

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Source: Tim Stockwell
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