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National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

News Release

NIH develops improved mouse model of alcoholic liver disease
For Release
Scientists may be better able to study how heavy drinking damages the liver using a new mouse model of alcohol drinking and disease developed by researchers from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health. The model incorporates chronic and binge drinking patterns to more closely approximate alcoholic liver disease in humans...
Surveillance Report #109
TRENDS IN SUBSTANCE USE AMONG REPRODUCTIVE-AGE FEMALES IN THE UNITED STATES, 2002–2015 Megan E. Slater, Ph.D. Sarah P. Haughwout, M.P.H. CSR, Incorporated 1 4250 N. Fairfax Drive Suite 500 Arlington, VA 22203 September 2017 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Public Health Service National Institutes of Health 1 CSR, Incorporated operates the Alcohol Epidemiologic Data System (AEDS) under Contract...
Scientists rethink alcohol/breast cancer relationship

Time course and metabolism are important factors According to National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) scientists, existing epidemiologic evidence supporting the relationship between moderate alcohol consumption and breast cancer risk needs further study. “Understanding how and when alcohol consumption increases breast cancer risk is important for a full understanding of how moderate alcohol drinking impacts women’s overall health,”...

The Basics: Defining How Much Alcohol is Too Much
Show your patients a standard drink chart when asking about their alcohol consumption to encourage more accurate estimates. Drinks often contain more alcohol than people think, and patients often underestimate their consumption. Advise some patients not to drink at all, including those who are managing health conditions that can be worsened by alcohol, are taking medications that could interact with alcohol, are pregnant or planning to become pregnant, or are under age 21.

Event

Webinar: Alcohol and the Teenage Brain
Thursday, August 15, 2019, 1:00 pm EDT to Thursday, August 15, 2019, 2:00 pm EDT

Abstract: Teens are wired to seek novel, exciting experiences and take risks. All too often, that leads to experimentation with drugs and alcohol. The teen brain is especially sensitive to the effects of alcohol, increasing the odds that a teen will binge drink or experience blackouts. While adolescents eventually “age out” of these sensitivities, new research shows the effects of...

Risk Factors: Varied Vulnerability to Alcohol-Related Harm
Knowing which patient groups are at greater risk for alcohol-related harm can reinforce your efforts to conduct careful screening, assessment, advising, and referral. Risks for alcohol-related harm vary by a wide range of factors, including your patient’s age, gender, sexual minority status, genes, mental health, and exposure to trauma or other stressors.
Alcohol and Young Adults Ages 18 to 25
Prevalence of Alcohol Use Prevalence of Past-Month Drinking According to the 2022 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 17.5 million young adults ages 18 to 25 (50.2% in this age group) reported that they drank alcohol in the past month. 1,2 This includes: 8.5 million males ages 18 to 25 (48.6% in this age group) 1,2 9.0 million...
Alcohol and Pregnancy in the United States
According to the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS)—a survey of more than 400,000 people by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—during 2018–2020, nearly 14% of pregnant people ages 18 to 49 reported current drinking. 1 Also according to BRFSS, during 2018–2020, about 5% of pregnant people ages 18 to 49 reported binge drinking in the past 30...

News Release

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Launches National Initiative to Prevent Underage Drinking - Governors' Spouses Form Leadership to Keep Children Alcohol Free
For Release

The little-known but alarming facts surrounding alcohol consumption by children ages 9 to 15 have prompted more than 25 Governors' Spouses to join forces and put this issue on the national agenda. Today they launched Leadership to Keep Children Alcohol Free, a multi-year, public-private partnership focused on preventing the use of alcohol by children, funded by the National Institute on...

Press Room
The NIAAA press office is the central contact for all members of the news media. The office can assist you in arranging interviews with NIAAA experts and in providing accurate and timely alcohol-related research news and information. Contact the Press Team Reporters or other members of the news media can reach the NIAAA press team via NIAAAPressOffice@mail.nih.gov or 301-443-2857. Members...
Entendiendo qué es el consumo excesivo y peligroso de alcohol
¿Qué es el consumo excesivo y peligroso de alcohol? El Instituto Nacional sobre el Abuso de Alcohol y Alcoholismo (NIAAA, por sus siglas en inglés) define el consumo excesivo y peligroso de alcohol (binge drinking) como un patrón de consumo de alcohol que eleva el nivel de alcohol en la sangre (BAC, por sus siglas en inglés) a 0.08%, o...
NIAAA 50th Anniversary Milestones
NIAAA Established The Comprehensive Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Prevention, Treatment, and Rehabilitation Act of 1970 launched the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, authorizing NIAAA “to develop and conduct comprehensive health, education, training, research, and planning programs for the prevention and treatment” of alcohol-related problems. Called the “Hughes Act,” after its champion, Iowa Senator Harold E. Hughes, the legislation...
Looking for Science-Based Resources about Alcohol and Health?
April is Alcohol Awareness Month. Alcohol has been very much in the news this year from discussions about the contribution of alcohol in causing cancer to mocktails to Dry January, all reflecting a changing conversation about alcohol. As a result, there is so much information about alcohol in the news and on social media that it can be hard to...
Introduction on Working Group on Prevention of Risk Drinking in Pregnancy

April 23-24, 1998 • Ramada Inn • Bethesda, Maryland Introduction The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and its co-sponsors, the Office of Research on Women’s Health and the Interagency Coordinating Committee on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, convened a Working Group on Prevention of Risk Drinking in Pregnancy on April 23 through 24, 1998, in Bethesda, Maryland, to discuss...

NIAAA Director's Statement for the Record on NIAAA FY 2015 Budget Request, Senate Subcommittee on Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: As the new Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), I am pleased to present the President’s Budget request for the Institute. The fiscal year (FY) 2015 NIAAA budget request of $446,017,000 reflects an increase of $606,000 over the comparable FY 2014...

Women and Alcohol
Research shows that alcohol use and misuse among women are increasing. While alcohol misuse by anyone presents serious public health concerns, women who drink have a higher risk of certain alcohol-related problems compared to men.
Study Highlights Importance of Positive Alcohol Responses for Future Alcohol Problems

Some people experience the initial effects of alcohol as stimulating and euphoric, while others experience mostly unpleasant sedative effects. How individuals’ immediate responses to alcohol influence their future drinking behavior has been an active area of scientific research. One theory holds that people who have a low level of positive response to alcohol and who also are less sensitive to...

Surveillance Reports
NEW! Posted on May 2, 2024 Surveillance Report #121 [ PDF ]: Apparent Per Capita Alcohol Consumption: National, State, and Regional Trends, 1977–2022 (Slater, Megan E.; Alpert, Hillel R.) April 2024 Examines trends in apparent alcohol consumption in the United States. Findings are based on alcoholic beverage sales data, collected from the States or the National Alcohol Beverage Control Association...

News Release

Early Drinking Onset Increases Lifetime Injury Risk
For Release

Ralph Hingson, Sc.D., and other researchers at the Boston University School of Public Health reported in the September 27 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association that the younger people are when they begin drinking the more likely they are to be injured later in life when under the influence of alcohol. Those who start drinking before age...

Brief Counseling Sessions Reduce Harmful College Drinking

Brief counseling sessions by physicians can help college students reduce harmful alcohol use, according to a new study supported by NIAAA. Led by Michael F. Fleming, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Wisconsin, the study is part of the ongoing College Health Intervention Projects (CHIPs) study, a randomized, controlled clinical trial conducted in five college health clinics in Wisconsin, Washington...

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