http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. A multi-tiered effort designed to stem binge drinking at a large university and to change the drinking culture among its students produced notable results during the 2.5 years of an Indiana University study. http://phys.org/news208585644.html Medicine & Health Wed, 10 Nov 2010 04:28:06 EST news208585644 Rapamycin, an FDA-approved drug prescribed to prevent the rejection of transplanted organs, has been shown for the first time to decrease excessive alcohol consumption, binge drinking, and alcohol-seeking behavior in rodents. The finding is in a study by researchers at the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center at the University of California, San Francisco. http://phys.org/news207910178.html Medicine & Health Tue, 02 Nov 2010 10:20:01 EST news207910178 Roughly 100,000 juvenile offenders are released each year from U.S. correctional facilities and reenter the community, but little research has been done on the types of neighborhoods they end up in, including the risks they face and the types of resources available to them. http://phys.org/news207302123.html Medicine & Health Tue, 26 Oct 2010 08:55:45 EST news207302123 Many studies have suggested that genetic differences make some individuals more susceptible to the addictive effects of alcohol and other drugs. Now scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory provide the first experimental evidence to directly support this idea in a study in mice reported in the October 19, 2010, issue of Alcoholism Clinical Experimental Research. http://phys.org/news206727082.html Medicine & Health Tue, 19 Oct 2010 17:11:43 EST news206727082 (PhysOrg.com) -- University of Arizona family studies professor Bruce J. Ellis has developed a theoretical framework for understanding how elements of change and stress often guide the behavior of young people. http://phys.org/news205415023.html Other Sciences Mon, 04 Oct 2010 13:30:01 EST news205415023 Prior research has shown that alcohol abuse and dependence are typically associated with higher rates of obesity, as evidenced by a high body mass index (BMI). Findings from a new study of the relationship between BMI and regional measures of brain structure, metabolite concentrations, and cerebral blood flow suggest that alcohol-related brain injuries may result from a complicated fusion of hazardous drinking, chronic cigarette smoking, and even elevated BMI. http://phys.org/news203096777.html Medicine & Health Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:30:09 EST news203096777 (PhysOrg.com) -- Daily physical exercise during adolescence decreases cocaine-seeking behavior in young adult rats, implying that exercise may protect against cocaine abuse later in life. http://phys.org/news200155691.html Medicine & Health Wed, 04 Aug 2010 16:10:02 EST news200155691 A study by a team of researchers at Bangor University has designed and tested two programs that help problem drinkers curb their alcohol abuse. The study shows positive results after drinkers have followed either the Alcohol Attention-Control Training Program or the Life Enhancement and Advancement Program. http://phys.org/news199638230.html Medicine & Health Thu, 29 Jul 2010 19:00:02 EST news199638230 Rui Costa, Principal Investigator of the Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia (Portugal), and Xin Jin, of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health (USA), describe in the latest issue of the journal Nature, that the activity of certain neurons in the brain can signal the initiation and termination of behavioural sequences we learn anew. Furthermore, they found that this brain activity is essential for learning and executing novel action sequences, many times compromised in patients suffering from disorders such as Parkinson's or Huntington's. http://phys.org/news198934294.html Medicine & Health Wed, 21 Jul 2010 13:00:16 EST news198934294 Persons with alcohol problems are finding comfort in speaking about their situation to clergy, a new study shows. http://phys.org/news198325996.html Medicine & Health Wed, 14 Jul 2010 12:00:14 EST news198325996 An African study has found a link between a difficult childhood and alcohol consumption as a teenager. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health studied the association between adverse childhood experiences and drunkenness among 9,189 adolescents aged 12-19 years living in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi, and Uganda. http://phys.org/news197530842.html Medicine & Health Mon, 05 Jul 2010 06:40:54 EST news197530842 Alcohol abuse is highly disruptive of circadian rhythms, and circadian disruptions can also lead to alcohol abuse as well as relapse in abstinent alcoholics. Circadian timing in mammals is regulated by light as well as other influences such as food, social interactions, and exercise. A new study of the relationship between alcohol intake and wheel-running in hamsters has found that exercise may provide an effective alternative for reducing alcohol intake in humans. http://phys.org/news196359452.html Medicine & Health Mon, 21 Jun 2010 19:10:02 EST news196359452 While alcohol in the form of a "night cap" may be able to help an individual fall asleep, its pharmacological properties later disrupt the rapid eye movement (REM) and deeper, more restorative stages of sleep. Sleep problems also predict the onset of alcohol abuse in healthy adults and relapse in abstinent alcoholics. A new study of associations among pubertal development, sleep preferences and problems, and alcohol use in early adolescence has found that puberty is related to sleep problems and later bedtimes, which were in turn associated with alcohol use. http://phys.org/news196358346.html Medicine & Health Mon, 21 Jun 2010 16:59:21 EST news196358346 An assessment of patients with adult Tourette syndrome (TS) to identify clinical factors that contribute to psychosocial and occupational disabilities resulting from the vocal or motor tics that define TS found that anxiety/panic disorder may be the most disabling psychiatric condition associated with the disorder. http://phys.org/news196012881.html Medicine & Health Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:01:44 EST news196012881 (AP) -- Countries around the world are pledging to get tough with companies that market beer and liquor on social media networks such as Facebook, warning that such promotions threaten to entice a new generation into harmful drinking patterns. http://phys.org/news193558070.html Medicine & Health Thu, 20 May 2010 07:08:02 EST news193558070 A genetic variant of a receptor in the brain's reward circuitry plays an important role in determining whether the neurotransmitter dopamine is released in the brain following alcohol intake, according to a study led by researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health. Dopamine is involved in transmitting the euphoria and other positive subjective effects produced by alcohol. http://phys.org/news193407662.html Medicine & Health Tue, 18 May 2010 14:10:05 EST news193407662 The brain's nucleus accumbens (NAC) is a core region of the mesocorticolimbic dopaminergic system and is interconnected with the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and the prefrontal cortex. The mesocorticolimbic system is thought to be central to the reinforcing effects of many drugs and plays an important role in addiction. A new study has found that alcohol abuse elevated the expression of a distinct set of genes in the NAC and VTA, while nicotine blunted this effect in the VTA. http://phys.org/news192210597.html Medicine & Health Tue, 04 May 2010 16:50:37 EST news192210597 A recent study by Danish researchers discovered patients with alcoholic cirrhosis had a high prevalence of complications at the time of the disease diagnosis. Researchers noted that complications, such as ascites (excessive fluid in the abdomen), were predictors of mortality, but did not develop in a predictable sequence. Results of this 12-year mortality study appear in the May issue of Hepatology, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD). http://phys.org/news191589149.html Medicine & Health Tue, 27 Apr 2010 12:50:02 EST news191589149 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have identified new genes and pathways that influence an individual's typical pattern of brain electrical activity, a trait that may serve as a useful surrogate marker for more genetically complex traits and diseases. One of the genes, for example, was found to be associated with alcoholism. http://phys.org/news191570658.html Medicine & Health Tue, 27 Apr 2010 07:04:41 EST news191570658 Individuals who have used indoor tanning facilities may meet criteria for addiction, and may also be more prone to anxiety symptoms and substance use, according to a report in the April issue of Archives of Dermatology. http://phys.org/news190901030.html Medicine & Health Mon, 19 Apr 2010 16:00:05 EST news190901030 A new study from researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Children's Hospital Boston has found that gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and heterosexuals who have ever had a same-sex sex partner are one-and-a-half to two times as likely to experience violent events, especially in childhood, than the general population and have double the risk of experiencing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a consequence of these events. It is the first study to directly link higher rates of PTSD in those four groups (classified as sexual minorities) to greater violence exposure. http://phys.org/news190570299.html Medicine & Health Thu, 15 Apr 2010 18:20:01 EST news190570299 Alcohol-use disorders (AUDs), referring to both alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence, affect nearly 8.5 percent of the American population, are associated with numerous medical, psychiatric, family, legal, and work-related problems, and cost an estimated $185 billion in 1998. A new study has found that oral naltrexone can reduce both alcohol- and non-alcohol-related healthcare costs for patients with AUDs. http://phys.org/news189705103.html Medicine & Health Mon, 05 Apr 2010 18:00:03 EST news189705103 Measuring a set of protein changes in the blood linked to alcohol use may potentially lead to a more accurate diagnostic test than those currently available, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. http://phys.org/news188569061.html Medicine & Health Tue, 23 Mar 2010 13:17:54 EST news188569061 Men and women with a history of alcohol abuse may not see long-term negative effects on their memory and thinking, but female smokers do, a new study suggests. http://phys.org/news187936291.html Medicine & Health Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:32:12 EST news187936291 R-rated movies portray violence and other behaviors deemed inappropriate for children under 17 year of age. A new study finds one more reason why parents should not let their kids watch those movies: adolescents who watch R-rated movies are more likely to try alcohol at a young age. http://phys.org/news187536719.html Medicine & Health Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:00:16 EST news187536719 Alcohol increases the risk of violence in couples — especially violence both to and by the female partner. A new study of couples that experienced intimate partner violence found 30.2 percent reported alcohol use before or during the event. http://phys.org/news183836677.html Medicine & Health Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:10:01 EST news183836677 Restrictions should be placed on the use of Ginkgo biloba (G. biloba) -- a top-selling herbal remedy -- because of growing scientific evidence that Ginkgo may increase the risk of seizures in people with epilepsy and could reduce the effectiveness of anti-seizure drugs, a new report concludes. The article appears in ACS' Journal of Natural Products. http://phys.org/news183816819.html Medicine & Health Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:20:01 EST news183816819 The omega-3 essential fatty acids commonly found in fatty fish and algae help animals avoid sensory overload, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. The finding connects low omega-3s to the information-processing problems found in people with schizophrenia; bipolar, obsessive-compulsive, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders; Huntington's disease; and other afflictions of the nervous system. http://phys.org/news180191375.html Medicine & Health Wed, 16 Dec 2009 13:20:01 EST news180191375 Despite the barbs of comedians and the spectacular bust-ups documented in the gossip magazines, marriage really is good for you, international research has found. http://phys.org/news180084325.html Medicine & Health Tue, 15 Dec 2009 07:50:01 EST news180084325 (PhysOrg.com) -- One in five young people experience a cannabis use disorder, according to a UQ and Mater Hospital study published today in the American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse. http://phys.org/news179595240.html Medicine & Health Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:50:01 EST news179595240