National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)
Heavy drinking during pregnancy disrupts proper brain development in children and adolescents years after they were exposed to alcohol in the womb, according to a study supported by the National Institutes of Health. The study is the first to track children over several years to examine how heavy exposure to alcohol in utero affects brain growth over time. Using magnetic...
Barbara Foley, R.N., Executive Director and Co-Founder of Emergency Nurses CARE (EN CARE) of Alexandria, Virginia, today was named the fourth recipient of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s annual Senator Harold Hughes Memorial Award. The award is made annually to a nonresearcher who has used alcohol research findings to foster research, prevention, or treatment, thereby translating research...
A study reported in the November 8 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (Volume 284, Number 18) shows that communities that undertake comprehensive prevention strategies can effectively reduce alcohol-related traffic crashes and injuries from crashes and assaults. Relative to matched comparison sites, intervention communities (two in California and one in South Carolina) experienced marked reductions in alcohol-related...
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism today released the first report from its National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey (NLAES), including the most precise estimates to date of alcohol abuse and dependence among U.S. adults. The figures are reported by Bridget F. Grant, Ph.D., Ph.D., and colleagues in the current issue (Vol. 18, No. 3) of Alcohol Health &...
Alcohol-related deaths among U.S. college students rose from 1,440 deaths in 1998 to 1,825 in 2005, along with increases in heavy drinking and drunk driving, according to an article in the July supplement of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. The special issue describes the results of a broad array of research-based programs to reduce and prevent alcohol-related...
Children born to mothers who both drank and smoked beyond the first trimester of pregnancy have a 12-fold increased risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) compared to those unexposed or only exposed in the first trimester of pregnancy, according to a new study supported by the National Institutes of Health. SIDS is the sudden, unexplained, death of an infant...
Pretreating transplanted livers with the immune molecule interleukin-6 (IL-6) dramatically increased survival of rats receiving organs with fatty degeneration—a common condition in humans that typically reduces transplant viability. The results suggest a means of making it possible to use a higher percentage of available donor livers for transplantation in humans. With over three times as many Americans needing transplants as...
Survey shows marijuana use disorder linked to substance use/mental disorders and disability Marijuana use disorder is common in the United States, is often associated with other substance use disorders, behavioral problems, and disability, and goes largely untreated, according to a new study conducted by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health...
Patients with a certain gene variant drank less and experienced better overall clinical outcomes than patients without the variant while taking the medication naltrexone, according to an analysis of participants in the National Institutes of Health's 2001-2004 COMBINE (Combined Pharmacotherapies and Behavioral Interventions for Alcohol Dependence) Study. About 87 percent of patients with the variant who received naltrexone. experienced good...
75 percent report not receiving any form of treatment A survey of American adults revealed that drug use disorder is common, co-occurs with a range of mental health disorders and often goes untreated. The study, funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health, found that about 4 percent of Americans...
An article in today’s Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) Journal (Chen, S; Wilkemeyer, M; Sulik, K; and Charness, M. Octanol antagonism of ethanol teratogenesis, FASEB J. 10.1096/fj00-08620fje and Volume 15, Number 9, July 2001) reports that the long-chain alcohol 1-octanol successfully blocks a mechanism leading to fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). Viewed as paradoxical because it is the...
Based on just two questions from a newly released guide, health care professionals could spot children and teenagers at risk for alcohol-related problems. Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention for Youth: A Practitioner’s Guide is now available from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health. Developed in collaboration with the American Academy...
Asking emergency department patients about their alcohol use and talking with them about how to reduce harmful drinking patterns is an effective way to lower rates of risky drinking in these patients, according to a nationwide collaborative study supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Emergency...