National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

Scientists have identified a brain mechanism in rats that may play a central role in regulating anxiety and alcohol-drinking. The finding, by researchers supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), could provide important clues about the neurobiology of alcohol-drinking behaviors in humans. A report of the study appears...

Drinking alcoholic beverages has been linked to an increased risk of upper gastrointestinal cancer and other types of cancer. Researchers looking for the potential biochemical basis for this link have focused on acetaldehyde, a suspected carcinogen formed as the body metabolizes alcohol. In the journal Nucleic Acids Research (vol. 33, num. 11), scientists from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse...

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has released a new guide for health care practitioners to help them identify and care for patients with heavy drinking and alcohol use disorders. Helping Patients Who Drink Too Much: A Clinician's Guide [ PDF ]is now available free online ( www.niaaa.nih.gov )...

Data from a recent epidemiologic survey of more than 43,000 U.S. adults show that antisocial syndromes-marked by little concern for the rights of others and violations of age-appropriate societal rules-are more common among people with substance abuse disorders than those without these disorders. The study by researchers from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and National Institute on Alcohol...

Communities can decrease alcohol-related fatal crashes by providing better access to substance abuse treatment while reducing the availability of alcohol in the community, according to a new study supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). A report of the study appears in the April, 2005 issue of the...

"Alcohol and Your Health-Where Do You Draw the Line?" is the question to be posed once again on Thursday, April 7, when National Alcohol Screening Day (NASD) marks its 7th year. Since NASD originated in 1999, a steadily growing one-quarter million participants have addressed that question head on at thousands of NASD sites across the country. Sites registered for 2005...

The harm caused by alcohol consumption among college students may exceed previous estimates of the problem. Researchers report that unintentional fatal injuries related to alcohol increased from about 1,500 in 1998 to more than 1,700 in 2001 among U.S. college students aged 18-24. Over the same period national surveys indicate the number of students who drove under the influence of...

The body mass index (BMI) of individuals who drink alcohol may be related to how much, and how often, they drink, according to a new study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). In an analysis of data collected from more than 37,000 people who had never smoked, researchers found that...

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...

According to the results of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study, reported in the December issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry (Volume 61), Mexican Americans and non-Hispanic Whites born in the United States have a higher risk for developing psychiatric disorders than their foreign-born counterparts who have immigrated to the United States. The psychiatric disorders included alcohol and...

Adults with nicotine dependence and/or psychiatric disorders consume 70 percent of all cigarettes smoked in the United States, according to results of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study reported in the November issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry (Volume 61). Based on the 2001-2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), the article provides the first...

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health, announced it will convene the first meeting of the Steering Committee on Underage Drinking Research and Prevention on September 20, in Bethesda, Maryland. The new committee comprises leaders with broad and varied expertise in child and adolescent development, neuroscience, genetics, prevention research, public policy...

Although the prevalence of underage drinking has decreased since its peak in the late 1970s, drinking by youth has stabilized over the past decade at disturbingly high levels. The findings, part of a new analysis of youth drinking trends by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), appear in the September, 2004 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research...

An estimated 17.6 million American adults (8.5 percent) meet standard diagnostic criteria for an alcohol use disorder * and approximately 4.2 million (2 percent) meet criteria for a drug use disorder. Overall, about one-tenth (9.4 percent) of American adults, or 19.4 million persons, meet clinical criteria for a substance use disorder--either an alcohol or drug use disorder or both--according to...

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 the 2001-2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) reported in the current issue of the Journal of Clinical...

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Director Ting-Kai Li, M.D., has named Markus Heilig, M.D., Ph.D., as Chief of the Laboratory of Clinical Studies (LCS), and Clinical Director in NIAAA's Division of Intramural Clinical and Biological Research. "We are fortunate to have Dr. Heilig in these important positions," says Dr. Li. "He is an outstanding clinician and a...

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Director Ting-Kai Li, M.D., announced today that Mark Willenbring, M.D., has joined NIAAA as the Director of the Institute's Division of Treatment and Recovery Research (DTRR). "NIAAA is fortunate to have Dr. Willenbring on board," says Dr. Li, "as he brings to NIAAA expertise in a range of issues in clinical research...

The number of American adults who abuse alcohol or are alcohol dependent rose from 13.8 million (7.41 percent) in 1991-1992 to 17.6 million (8.46 percent) in 2001-2002, according to results from the 2001-2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), a study directed by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). The NESARC study -- a...

In an article appearing in the May 5 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), addiction researchers at the National Institutes of Health compared marijuana use in the U.S. adult population in 1991-92 and 2001-02. They found that the number of people reporting use of the drug remained substantially the same in both time periods, but the...

Many people admitted to hospitals in the U.S. have alcohol use disorders that go undetected, according to a new study by scientists at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The finding, published in the April 12, 2004 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, underscores a need to screen...