Women are the new face of alcohol advertising

She's the image of poised perfection: a come-hither blonde in a sexy gold dress, balancing a martini between polished red nails, painted just a shade darker than the swizzle stick perched jauntily through the “o” in “Classic Cocktails” above her head.

Call her Ms. February. She's the LCBO cover girl — a Betty Draper lookalike posed on the front of a glossy celebration of the Sixties. “You're swingin', baby!” it reads. “Do it up right like they did when after-work martinis were de rigueur...

For several weeks this year, Ms. February was the hottest girl in town, her image towering tall in LCBO storefronts.

By March, she was toast, supplanted by a lanky brunette in a fuchsia mini-dress, cover girl for the LCBO Trend Report.

By Easter? The cover girl was no girl at all. Instead? An egg. Peach-toned, hand-painted, inscribed with the name “Lily.” Martha Stewart picked up where Mad Men left off, and a bottle of Ontario bubbly — “Girls' Night Out” — had replaced the martini. “A homestyle Easter” featured napkins folded in the shape of bunnies.

Welcome to the new face of alcohol advertising, the “pinking” of the wine and spirits market. > > > > Read More

Examining the influence of the Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws (EUDL) program on alcohol-related outcomes in five communities surrounding Air Force b

In 2006, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) awarded discretionary grants to five communities as part of the Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws (EUDL) initiative to implement an environmental strategies approach to reduce drinking and associated misconducts among Air Force members.

The evaluation design was a within-site, pre-test/post-test intervention comparison of baseline data to out-year data.

Four of the five communities had significant decreases in one or more of the outcomes of interest from pre-test to post-test. Two communities (Great Falls, MT and Tucson, AZ) had a significant decline in the compliance check failure rate of local establishments that sell alcohol. One community (Great Falls, MT) had a significant decline in arrests for possession of alcohol by a minor. Four communities (Great Falls, MT; Tucson, AZ; Phoenix, AZ; Honolulu, HI) had a significant decline in DUI/DWI arrests.

These findings build on results reported in an earlier article which provided evidence to suggest that the EUDL program had an influence on self-reported drinking behaviors in three of the five communities.

These two articles, in combination, provide evidence to suggest for the first time that community-level programs using an environmental strategy approach can be successful in targeting military members.



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Requst Reprint E-Mail: cspera@icfi.com

Chronic alcoholism increases the induction dose of propofol

The present study was designed to investigate the possible effect of chronic alcohol intake on propofol and remifentanil requirements, which was determined by quantifying the 50% (EC₅₀) and 95% (EC₉₅) effective effect-site concentrations for propofol and remifentanil at loss of consciousness (LOC) and after a painful stimulus.

Thirty male patients (alcoholic group; n = 30) with chronic alcoholism and 30 patients (control group; n = 30) with a history of small alcohol intake were anaesthetized with propofol and remifentanil by target-controlled infusion. The predicted drug concentrations and Bispectral Index (BIS) values were recorded at LOC and after no response to painful stimuli.

The EC₅₀ and EC₉₅ of propofol at LOC in alcoholic group were 3.15 [95% confidence interval (CI), 2.77–3.37] and 4.05 (95% CI, 3.18–5.26) μg/ml, respectively, and those of the control group were 2.21 (95% CI, 1.92–2.86) and 3.04 (95% CI, 2.45–4.64) μg/ml, respectively. The EC₅₀ and EC₉₅ of remifentanil measured after no response to painful stimuli in the alcoholic group were 3.02 (95% CI, 2.70–3.38) and 4.98 (95% CI, 4.56–5.89) ng/ml, respectively, and those of the control group were 2.95 (95% CI, 2.68–3.33) and 4.86 (95% CI, 4.55–5.92) ng/ml, respectively. The EC₅₀ and EC₉₅ values of propofol at LOC in the control group were significantly lower than that of the alcoholic group.

These findings suggest that the induction dose requirements of propofol are increased in alcoholic patients anaesthetized with propofol and remifentanil administered by target controlled infusion.

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Request Reprint E-Mail: zhanggangxue123@yahoo.cn

A Novel, Functional and Replicable Risk Gene Region for Alcohol Dependence Identified by Genome-Wide Association Study

Several genome-wide association studies (GWASs) reported tens of risk genes for alcohol dependence, but most of them have not been replicated or confirmed by functional studies.

The present study used a GWAS to search for novel, functional and replicable risk gene regions for alcohol dependence. Associations of all top-ranked SNPs identified in a discovery sample of 681 African-American (AA) cases with alcohol dependence and 508 AA controls were retested in a primary replication sample of 1,409 European-American (EA) cases and 1,518 EA controls. The replicable associations were then subjected to secondary replication in a sample of 6,438 Australian family subjects. A functional expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) analysis of these replicable risk SNPs was followed-up in order to explore their cis-acting regulatory effects on gene expression.

We found that within a 90 Mb region around PHF3-PTP4A1 locus in AAs, a linkage disequilibrium (LD) block in PHF3-PTP4A1 formed the only peak associated with alcohol dependence at p,1024. Within this block, 30 SNPs associated with alcohol dependence in AAs (1.661025#p#0.050) were replicated in EAs (1.361023#p#0.038), and 18 of them were also replicated in Australians (1.861023#p#0.048). Most of these risk SNPs had strong cis-acting regulatory effects on PHF3-PTP4A1 mRNA expression across three HapMap samples. The distributions of 2log(p) values for association
and functional signals throughout this LD block were highly consistent across AAs, EAs, Australians and three HapMap samples.

We conclude that the PHF3-PTP4A1 region appears to harbor a causal locus for alcohol
dependence, and proteins encoded by PHF3 and/or PTP4A1 might play a functional role in the disorder.


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The age of vulnerability: ‘Most girls drink to fit in’

It’s tea time at Tim Horton’s, and my guest is letting hers steep, her wary eyes focused on the long line at the till.

A tall girl of 17, with glossy chestnut hair, Nivea skin and a winsome smile, she pauses and looks away before she begins her story. Who can blame her? There’s a lot to tell. Laura, as she wants to be known, has never had a legal drink — and she hopes she never will.

“There are days when I feel like I’m 90,” says the Grade 12 student, who celebrated one year of sobriety in January. “My friends say they think I could drink again, but I say no. I’d end up on the top of a building and have no idea how I got there.” > > > > Read More

Alcoholics (not) Anonymous?

The underground railroad that is Alcoholics Anonymous — with more than 500 meetings a week in the Greater Toronto area — thrives on the promise of many things, not the least of which is anonymity.

What this means, literally, is that individuals must keep quiet not about their sobriety, but about their membership in AA. For more than seven decades, anonymity has been key, ensuring a safe haven for sharing and recovery.

In 1935, when AA was founded in Akron, Ohio, anonymity made sense. But in the era of Facebook and Twitter, there are those who argue that anonymity is a dated concept. Is it time for AA to drop the second “a”? Some say yes — most famously author Susan Cheever. She has written not only about her own drinking and that of her father, writer John Cheever, but also a biography of Bill Wilson, one of the co-founders of AA. Last spring, she wrote a controversial column in the new online New York-based magazine The Fix: “We are in the midst of a public health crisis when it comes to understanding and treating addiction. AA’s principle of anonymity may only be contributing to general confusion and prejudice. When it comes to alcoholism and AA, the problem is very public, but the solution is still veiled in secrecy.” > > > > Read More

Bupa survey reveals Brits are in denial about drinking habits

BRITS are more than twice as likely to drink every day as our foreign neighbours, with experts warning we're in denial about our alcohol consumption.

A survey of 12 countries revealed that Brits are 41 per cent more likely to drink alcohol than other nations.

We're also twice as likely to describe ourselves as "regular drinkers," with one in 10 Brits admitting that they drink every day - more than double the international average.

Despite links between excess boozing and life-threatening health conditions, the survey also showed a third of Brits said they don't want to cut back on drink. > > > > Read More

:Bupa Health Pulse 2011: International Healthcare Survey - Global Trends, Attitudes and Influences

The Bupa Health Pulse 2011 report focuses on research in 12 developed and developing countries in Europe (Spain and the UK), the Americas (Brazil, Mexico and the US ), the Middle East (Saudi Arabia), Asia (China, India, Hong Kong and Thailand) and Australasia (Australia and New Zealand) and examines the key factors that influence people’s behaviour with regard to their health.

It is based on interviews in 2011 with 13,373 adult members of the general public aged 18+.

The report aims to deepen understanding not only of the trends but also the influences, attitudes, perceptions and behaviours which, on every continent, account for those trends and which potently determine the quality of health of individuals and of nations.


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Atkinson Series: When the drink comes calling

Hang out in the brightly lit rooms of AA, or in coffee shops, talking to dozens of women who have given up drinking, and this is the conclusion you come to: for most people, booze is a loan shark, someone they trusted for a while, came to count on, before it turned ugly. Every alcoholic, it seems, learns this the hard way.

And no matter what the circumstances, certain parts of the story are always the same. Here is how the story goes:

At first, alcohol is that elegant figure standing in the corner by the bar, the handsome one in the beautiful black tuxedo. Or maybe he’s in black leather and jeans. It doesn’t matter. You can’t miss him. He’s always at the party — and he always gets there first.

Maybe you first saw him in high school. Many do. Others meet him long, long before. He finds his moment, some time when you’re wobbly or nervous, excited or scared. You’re heading into a big party or a dance. All of a sudden your stomach begins to lurch. You’re overdressed, or underdressed; too tall, too short; heartsick or heart-in-your-mouth anxious. Doesn’t matter. Booze wastes no time. He sidles up with a quick hit of courage. You grab it. It feels good. It works. > > > > Read More

‘You want to know about my drinking? I lost my friends, my children, my mind’

Beata Klimek is remarkable: a woman willing to tell her story with unflinching candour, name included. A mother of two, comfortable sharing the details of her serious alcohol abuse, her recovery, and her life in the aftermath. Read her story in the first of an important series on why women are driving a growth in alcohol consumption around the world.

It’s 11 a.m. on a radiant morning in the Studio Café, a picture-perfect moment in the signature room of Toronto’s Four Season’s Hotel. Bright wedges of sunlight illuminate dozens of polished glass tables. The room is virtually empty. By noon, the café — perched high above Yorkville — will be full. But for now, there is just a handful of twosomes: Belinda Stronach deep in conversation with a gray-haired gentleman, a well-known film producer huddled with an actress in a corner. People who mean business. > > > > Read More

PS1-10: The Effectiveness of Screening and Brief Intervention on Reducing DWI Citations

The purpose of this study was to use retrospective data to assess the long-term effectiveness of screening and brief intervention (SBI) for at-risk alcohol users and its impact on traffic safety by looking at DWI citations. A second objective was to study ethnicity differences in response to SBI.

During the time period from 1998 to 1999 LCF Research, together with the Lovelace Health System, participated in the Cutting Back study of screening and brief intervention for at-risk drinkers. A total of 426 subjects exhibiting at-risk drinking behaviors from the New Mexico cohort included 211 subjects who received a brief intervention and 215 in the control group who received usual care were used for the study. This study examined DWI citations for all 426 subjects during the five years following the Cutting Back study.

The brief interventions were shown to have had a significant impact on reducing DWI citations for at-risk drinkers with the benefit lasting for the 5 years duration of the study. The screening and brief intervention was found to be most effective in reducing DWI citations for Hispanic at-risk drinkers.

Evidence is presented to support that screening to identify at-risk drinkers followed by a brief intervention has a statistically significant lasting impact on improving traffic safety.

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Request Reprint E-Mail: bert.davis@LCFresearch.org

Social Norm Influences on Evaluations of the Risks Associated with Alcohol Consumption: Applying the Rank-Based Decision by Sampling Model to Health J

The research first tested whether perceptions of other people's alcohol consumption influenced drinkers' perceptions of the riskiness of their own consumption. Second, the research tested how such comparisons are made—whether, for example, people compare their drinking to the ‘average’ drinker's or ‘rank’ their consumption amongst other people's. The latter untested possibility, suggested by the recent Decision by Sampling Model of judgment, would imply different cognitive mechanisms and suggest that information should be presented differently to people in social norm interventions.

Study 1 surveyed students who provided information on (a) their own drinking, (b) their perceptions of the distribution of drinking in the UK and (c) their perceived risk of various alcohol-related disorders. Study 2 experimentally manipulated the rank of ‘target’ units of alcohol within the context of units viewed simultaneously.

In both studies, the rank of an individual's drinking in a context of other drinkers predicted perceptions of developing alcohol-related disorders. There was no evidence for the alternative hypothesis that people compared with the average of other drinkers' consumption. The position that subjects believed they occupied in the ranking of other drinkers predicted their perceived risk, and did so as strongly as how much they actually drank.

Drinking comparisons are rank-based, which is consistent with other judgments in social, emotional and psychophysical domains. Interventions should be designed to work with people's natural ways of information processing, through providing clients with information on their drinking rank rather than how their drinking differs from the average.


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Request Reprint E-Mail: alex.wood@manchester.ac.uk

Evaluation of NIAAA’s Alcohol Screening Guide for Children and Adolescents (R01)

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement is to solicit applications to evaluate the new NIAAA alcohol screener for youth as described in "Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention for Youth: A Practitioner’s Guide". Although the questions were empirically developed, are based on a vast amount of data from national surveys as well as numerous prospective studies, and have high sensitivity and specificity in the sample studied, it is important that the precision of the screener be evaluated in practice.

Applications are being sought that will evaluate the two question screener in youth ages 9 to 18 both: 1) as a predictor of alcohol risk, alcohol use, and alcohol problems including AUDs; and 2) as an initial screen for other behavioral health problems, for example other drug use, smoking, or conduct disorder. > > > > Read More

Atypical frontal lobe activity during verbal working memory in youth with a family history of alcoholism

Abnormal brain functioning during verbal working memory (VWM) tasks has been shown in individuals with alcohol use disorders (AUDs). Since adolescents with a familial history of alcoholism (FHP) are at high risk for developing an AUD, it is important to consider whether atypical brain activity during VWM may help to explain FHP vulnerability toward developing alcoholism.

To that end, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined brain response during a VWM 2-back task in 19 FHP adolescents and 16 age and gender-matched family history negative (FHN) controls.

Despite no group differences in task accuracy, FHP youth had significantly slower average reaction time when making correct responses during the 2-back condition than FHN youth. In contrast to a vigilance control condition, while covarying for reaction time, FHP adolescents showed less activation during VWM than FHN youth in multiple areas of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) – a brain region crucial to intact working memory skills.

These results suggest that even prior to heavy alcohol use, FHP adolescents show atypical executive brain functioning during VWM, and that these differences are independent of slower working memory reaction time in FHP youth. Given the importance of working memory in numerous areas of day-to-day functioning, such as adaptive decision-making, these abnormalities may contribute to FHP youth vulnerability toward developing AUDs.

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Request Reprint E-Mail: nagelb@ohsu.edu

Noradrenergic vs Serotonergic Antidepressant with or without Naltrexone for Veterans with PTSD and Comorbid Alcohol Dependence

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are associated with high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and comorbid alcohol use disorders. The pharmacotherapy of these comorbid conditions has received relatively little study.

The current study compared the serotonin uptake inhibitor, paroxetine, to the norepinephrine uptake inhibitor, desipramine. It also evaluated the adjunctive efficacy of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved alcoholism pharmacotherapy, naltrexone, relative to placebo.

Four groups of predominately male veterans (n=88) meeting current diagnostic criteria for both alcohol dependence (AD) and PTSD were randomly assigned under double-blind conditions to one of four groups: paroxetine+naltrexone; paroxetine+placebo; desipramine+naltrexone; desipramine+placebo. Main outcome measures included standardized scales that assessed symptoms of PTSD and alcohol consumption.

Paroxetine did not show statistical superiority to desipramine for the treatment of PTSD symptoms. However, desipramine was superior to paroxetine with respect to study retention and alcohol use outcomes. Naltrexone reduced alcohol craving relative to placebo, but it conferred no advantage on drinking use outcomes.

Although the serotonin uptake inhibitors are the only FDA-approved medications for the treatment of PTSD, the current study suggests that norepinephrine uptake inhibitors may present clinical advantages when treating male veterans with PTSD and AD.

However, naltrexone did not show evidence of efficacy in this population.



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Request Reprint E-Mail: ismene.petrakis@yale.edu

Welcome to the Alcohol Policy Information System

The Alcohol Policy Information System (APIS) provides detailed information on a wide variety of alcohol-related policies in the United States at both State and Federal levels. Detailed, state-by-state, information is available for the 35 policies listed below. APIS also provides a variety of informational resources of interest to alcohol policy researchers and others involved with alcohol policy issues. > > > > Read More

Evolutionary differences in food preference rely on Gr64e, a receptor for glycerol

Very little is known about how stimuli that are typically not rich in sugars, such as beer, trigger attractive gustatory responses in Drosophila.

We identified a member of the gustatory receptor family, Gr64e, as a receptor that is required for feeding preference for beer and other sources that have fermenting yeast.

We found that Gr64e is required for neuronal and behavioral responses to glycerol, an abundant component of growing yeast and fermentation products. Ectopic expression of Gr64e in an olfactory neuron conferred responsiveness to glycerol.

We also found that Drosophila species that are predicted to carry pseudogenes of Gr64e had reduced glycerol sensitivity.

Our results provide insight into the molecular mechanisms of feeding acceptance of yeast products and raise the possibility that Gr64e contributes to specific evolutionary variations in appetitive selectivity across Drosophila species.



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Rerquest Reprint E-Mail: anupama.dahanukar@ucr.edu

'From one to many: The risks of frequent excessive drinking' - report calls for understanding of 'risky drinking'

A report from 2020health, a health and technology policy body, has emphasised the importance of addressing 'risky drinking' as a key part of public health policy. The report highlights the importance of brief interventions [or IBA] for risky drinkers, the need to promote alcohol-free days, and Government action including minimum pricing. > > > > Read More

Alterations in neural aneuploidy by drugs of abuse during fetal brain development

Scientific Presentation: Sunday, Nov. 13, 11–12 p.m., Washington Convention Center

Mosaic aneuploidy, defined as coincidental chromosome losses and/or gains to deviate from the haploid chromosome complement, has been identified in both the developing and the adult mammalian central nervous system, including neural progenitor cells and functionally integrated mature neurons.

Aneuploidy arises through altered cellular mechanisms controlling growth, DNA synthesis and replication, and neurogenesis; during development, these processes are influenced by neurotransmitters and their associated signaling cascades.

Exposure to non-endogenous agonists such as amphetamines and nicotine can result in cell damage including oxidative stress or cleavage regulation problems and may contribute to DNA damage and misrepair through which aneuploidy can arise.

When used during pregnancy, drugs of abuse and alcohol can cross the placental barrier from the mother into the fetal brain, and are linked to developmental defects including abnormalities of cell proliferation, differentiation and death, loss of synaptic activity,

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), as well as pre- and postnatal growth retardation and Fetal Alcohol Disorders (FAD).

Here we show that in utero exposure to amphetamines or alcohol increases the incidence of aneuploidy in the developing brain.

Using metaphase spread analysis, embryos exposed at embryonic day 13.5 (E13.5) show a two-fold increase in total aneuploidy, from 23-25% in vehicle control versus 52% with d-amphetamine (10mg/kg) and 55-65% with ethanol (3-4.5mg/kg). For both drugs, hypoploidy (loss of chromosomes) was more prevalent than hyperploidy (chromosomal gains).

Metaphase spreads were also categorized by severity of aneuploidy: a mildly aneuploid spread has fewer than five chromosomes lost or gained; severe spreads have lost or gained more than five chromosomes.

Embryos exposed to d-amphetamine show a three-fold increase in the amount of mild aneuploidy compared to vehicle controls, while levels of severe aneuploidy remained consistent between treated and control embryos.

In contrast, embryos exposed to either 3mg/kg or 4.5mg/kg of ethanol display a three-fold increase in severe aneuploidy and less than twice as much mild aneuploidy.

These data identify alterations in neural aneuploidy as a new component in the etiology of disorders associated with prenatal exposure to alcohol and drugs of abuse.



Abstract 166.04 Summary and News Release

Dry Pushback Against Mann’s Alcoholism Movement and Robert King Merton’s Manifest and Latent Functions: A Perplexing Combination

My thinking on this post started off in one direction and then suddenly veered into another direction entirely. As you’ll see.

My original plan was simply to recount a triangular correspondence involving Laurance L. Cross, Harry Emerson Fosdick, and Marty Mann that occurred in 1947.

Their letters to one another captured a telling instance of pushback against Mann’s then-fledgling alcoholism-is-a-disease campaign from a disgruntled dry. > > > > Read More