Scientists Find Genes That Influence Brain Wave Patterns
By admin | April 27, 2010
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.
Washington, D.C. - infoZine - A report of the findings by researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health, appears online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“This important advance sustains our hope for the potential of genome-wide association techniques to further the study of complex genetic disorders such as alcoholism,” notes NIAAA Acting Director Kenneth R. Warren, Ph.D. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) allow researchers to rapidly scan the complete set of DNA of many individuals to find genetic variations associated with a particular disease or condition.
“One of the challenges in identifying the genes that underlie alcoholism is the large degree of genetic and environmental variability associated with the disease,” explains first author Colin A. Hodgkinson, Ph.D., a geneticist in the NIAAA Laboratory of Neurogenetics. “Such variability has impeded even GWAS efforts to identify alcoholism genes. To overcome those difficulties, we used GWAS techniques to search for genetic variants related to EEG, or brain wave, patterns in a comparatively small sample of several hundred Native American individuals.”
As unique as an individual’s fingerprints, EEG (electroencephalogram) patterns are highly heritable, and have been associated with alcoholism and other psychiatric disorders. The high degree of genetic similarity and common environmental exposure shared by the Native American individuals that comprised the study sample aided this search.
Working with David Goldman, M.D., chief of the NIAAA Laboratory of Neurogenetics, Dr. Hodgkinson and colleagues identified multiple genes that were associated with the amplitude, or height, of two of the four characteristic electrical frequencies that make up the wave patterns found in EEG recordings.
One of the genes, for example, was found to account for nearly 9 percent of the EEG theta wave variability seen in the Native American sample. Theta waves are relatively low-frequency brain waves, and previous studies have shown that their amplitude is altered among alcoholics. The researchers then showed that the same gene accounted for about 4 percent of theta wave variability in a sample of North American whites. The gene’s diminished effect among whites, they noted, was likely a reflection of the greater genetic variability present in that sample. In the same study Dr. Goldman’s group went on to show that genetic variation in one of the genes identified for theta wave variability was also associated with an altered risk for alcoholism.
“While our main findings are for genes that influence EEG wave patterns, this study represents an important step toward the use of EEG as a surrogate marker for alcoholism,” notes Dr. Goldman. “It also reveals new molecular pathways involved in addiction processes.”
source: Kansas City Info
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For Young Adults Addicted To Opioids, New Training Approach Launched By NIDA Blending Conference
By admin | April 26, 2010
A multi-faceted treatment program for young adults addicted to opioid drugs was unveiled at the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s (NIDA) Blending Conference in Albuquerque, N.M. This eighth meeting in the series briought together researchers and clinicians so their latest findings could be immediately applied to the needs of patients and their families dealing with addictive disorders. NIDA is a component of the National Institutes of Health.
The new treatment product, Buprenorphine Treatment for Young Adults, was based on research by NIDA’s Clinical Trials Network in partnership with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). It showed that young adults given longer term treatment with the medication buprenorphine were less likely to use drugs and more likely to stay in treatment, compared to those who received short term detoxification without follow-up medication. Buprenorphine helps relieve drug cravings.
“Buprenorphine had been proven effective with adults, but until recently, evidence was lacking that its anti-addiction properties would work in this important group of younger patients,” said NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow. “The new product includes a three-hour training package that examines opioid use among young adults and looks at research results showing the effectiveness of buprenorphine for this age group.”
The training program is in a suite of buprenorphine products developed by the Blending Initiative. Among them: training for addiction professionals about laws governing the office-based use of the treatment; a discussion of how to select appropriate patients; and an explanation of how buprenorphine works. Yet another product outlines the results of a NIDA clinical trial comparing short-term detoxification with buprenorphine versus clonidine, another addiction treatment.
This spring’s conference was titled “Blending Addiction Science and Practice: Evidence-Based Treatment and Prevention in Diverse Populations and Settings.” In addition to the new buprenorphine products, the topics ranged from controlling heroin and opioid addiction in young adults to understanding genetic changes in the brain that underlie addiction.
“Rapid advances in our understanding of the mechanisms behind addiction have expanded our treatment horizon dramatically in recent years,” said Dr. Volkow. “The value of the Blending Conference is that it provides an opportunity to translate basic research knowledge into everyday clinical practice.”
The Albuquerque conference is the biggest Blending meeting to date, with more than 1,300 registrants. Those attending included leading addiction treatment specialists, health care providers, criminal justice professionals, researchers and policymakers.
Other sessions included:
* Developing new drug addiction treatments: Dr. Volkow highlighted the dramatic scientific advances that help explain the molecular and genetic changes that underlie addiction.
* Vaccines for treating nicotine and cocaine addiction: Could the immune system be exploited to help smokers quit or cocaine users from relapsing? The idea is that by evoking an immune/antibody response to nicotine, we could keep it out of the brain, blocking its rewarding effects and promoting abstinence. A similar approach is being used with cocaine. Clinical trials are underway.
* A special track addressing American Indian and Alaskan Natives: These populations have long endured historical trauma and discrimination that have contributed to negative health outcomes, including substance abuse and HIV infection. Presenters will discuss how a culturally appropriate treatment framework based on input from the Native American community can respond to these complex health issues.
* Veterans with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): In the aftermath of combat stress, soldiers can develop mental health and substance abuse problems which can spill over into the family environment with destructive consequences. Addiction scientists will discuss the complex effects of combat-related PTSD on veterans, reservists and their families.
Source:
NIDA Press Office
NIH/National Institute on Drug Abuse
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Death toll from alcohol minimum pricing is revised
By admin | April 24, 2010
Setting a minimum price for alcohol in Scotland would save fewer lives than previously thought – according to the latest predictions by experts.
Estimates for the number of alcohol-related deaths prevented every year if a minimum price was established have been revised down from 210 to 119 – a 43% drop.
The change has occurred because the original forecasts produced for the Scottish Government were based on older data, including survey information on drinking habits in Scotland from 2003. Since then, alcohol consumption appears to have reduced a little and the average price of drink has crept up.
The team at Sheffield University who produced the original projections were asked to re-calculate using this new information. Their fresh report shows minimum pricing
having less of an impact on levels of alcohol consumption, mortality and hospital admissions.
Medical groups and other supporters of minimum pricing yesterday said the new figures still pointed to substantial health benefits. However, Dr Richard Simpson, Labour health spokesman and a critic of the proposal, said: “I think this report makes minimum unit pricing even less attractive than it was before.”
Previously it was estimated that setting a minimum price of 40p per unit of alcohol would reduce the weekly consumption by 2.7%. The new figure is 2.3%.
Originally it was estimated that the number of alcohol-related deaths would fall by 40 in the first year of a 40p policy. Now the estimate is 26. Hospital admissions are now thought likely to drop by 2,200 per year, instead of 3,600 per year, once the policy is well established. However, as drinking rates have increased among the young, a 40p minimum price is now thought likely to have a greater impact on crime than before.
Dr Peter Rice, psychiatrist and member of medical campaign group Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems, said: “The core message remains that minimum pricing is an approach which is very effective on the hardest drinkers.”
Dr Brian Keighley, chairman of the BMA in Scotland, agreed: “The slight overall decrease in the likely effects of the introduction of minimum pricing, as reported in the new Sheffield modelling study, should not be seen as a signal to dismiss this policy.”
Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said: “This study confirms that minimum pricing has a key role to play and will hit harmful drinkers hardest, encouraging them to reduce their consumption. This report shows that, at current drinking levels, minimum pricing coupled with a promotions ban could bring real and lasting benefits for Scotland’s health, our economy and our society.”
source: Herald Scotland
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SOS offers addiction recovery without religion
By admin | April 23, 2010
For atheists who are addicted to alcohol or drugs, recovery programs that urge reliance on a “higher power” can be problematic. What is this higher power? Despite protestations to the contrary, the term is obviously meant as a synonym for God. Substituting “nature,” “or “science” or some such thing doesn’t quite cut it.
There is an another approach for those uncomfortable with the spiritual content of 12-Step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous. Now celebrating its 25th anniversary, Secular Organizations for Sobriety — SOS, also known as Save Our Selves — credits the individual for his or her own sobriety. Despite this emphasis on personal responsibility, SOS members don’t have to go it alone. At anonymous meetings, members talk about their experiences, offering each other information and encouragement.
The SOS movement began with an article in the Summer 1985 issue of Free Inquiry magazine, by Jim Christopher. In “Sobriety Without Superstition,” Christopher gives an account of the path he took to sobriety which led him from 17 years “of a fearful and guilty alcoholism to a fearful and guilty sobriety with Alcoholics Anonymous.”
Christopher felt that turning one’s life over to a “higher power” was incompatible with research that indicated that addiction is the result of physiology, not psychology. The article got a big response from alcoholics and addicts who wanted to maintain sobriety without religion, leading Christopher to found SOS.
In a telephone interview Thursday, Christopher noted that SOS is not faith-based, “It’s of this world” he said.
He rejects the Alcohol Anonymous claim that a ” higher power’” does not necessarily refer to God. “That’s nonsense, ” he said. “It’s in all their literature.”
SOS meetings are held in every state, as well as in other countries. SOS has gained recognition from rehabilitation professionals and the nation courts, some of which have ruled that state-funded programs can’t require participation in AA because of its religious nature.
Christopher said there have been meeting in Riverside and San Bernardino in the past, but there are none currently. However, the organization will send out packets for anyone interested in starting a group.
The organization will celebrate its 25th anniversary Saturday at the International Festival of Recovery to be held at its headquarters at the Center for Inquiry in Los Angeles. Those attending will get a free lunch, and can attend workshops, presentations, seminars, talks by major presenters in the addiction recovery and mental health fields. Parking is free. Doors open at 8: a.m. for the daylong event.
For information, contact:
SOS International Clearinghouse
The Center for Inquiry - West
4773 Hollywood Blvd.
Hollywood, CA 90027
Phone: (323) 666-4295
E-mail: sos@cfiwest.org
source: http://www.examiner.com
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Heavy Alcohol Use Linked to Cancer
By admin | April 22, 2010
Researchers say they’ve gained new insight into a link at the cellular level between alcohol consumption, aging and cancer.
The key appears to lie in telomeres, structures at the end of chromosomes that shorten as people get older. Telomeres are also thought to shorten because of excessive drinking.
Researchers thought that people with shorter telomeres due to heavy drinking would face a higher risk of cancer.
“Heavy alcohol users tend to look haggard, and it is commonly thought heavy drinking leads to premature aging and earlier onset of diseases of aging. In particular, heavy alcohol drinking has been associated with cancer at multiple sites,” lead researcher Dr. Andrea Baccarelli, head of a research center at the University of Milan, said in a statement.
In the study, researchers analyzed DNA in 59 people who drank heavily (nearly one in four consumed at least four alcoholic drinks a day) and 197 people who drank at various levels.
Researchers found that telomere lengths were much shorter in those who drank a lot of alcohol.
“The decrease we found in telomere length is very sharp, and we were surprised to find such a strong effect at the cellular level,” Baccarelli said.
The study was to be presented Wednesday at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting, in Washington, D.C.
Source: CBC News
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An Alcoholic’s Savior: God, Belladonna or Both?
By admin | April 21, 2010
In October 1909, Dr. Alexander Lambert boldly announced to a New York Times reporter that he had found a surefire cure for alcoholism and drug addiction. Even more astounding, he stated that the treatment required “less than five days.” The therapy consisted of an odd mixture of belladonna (deadly nightshade), along with the fluid extracts of xanthoxylum (prickly ash) and hyoscyamus (henbane). “The result is often so dramatic,” Lambert said, “that one hesitates to believe it possible.”
Dr. Lambert was hardly a quack looking for headlines. He was widely known as Theodore Roosevelt’s personal physician, a professor of medicine at Cornell Medical College and an expert on alcoholism. Dr. Lambert had years of experience taking care of thousands of alcoholics at Bellevue Hospital’s infamous “drunk ward.” In fact, it was on this storied hospital ward where he experimented with the belladonna cure.
He had obtained the recipe from a layman named Charles B. Towns, who, in turn, claimed to have learned about it from a country doctor. In 1901, Mr. Towns opened a substance abuse hospital in New York City at 293 Central Park West, between 89th and 90th Streets. He needed Dr. Lambert because he lacked a medical degree and, hence, professional credibility; Dr. Lambert needed Mr. Towns, because for all his medical knowledge, he had relatively little to offer his patients in terms of an effective treatment.
The Towns Hospital attracted only the wealthiest alcoholics and addicts, who gladly paid exorbitant fees for a treatment that “successfully and completely removes the poison from the system and obliterates all craving for drugs and alcohol.” Because of Prohibition and the paradoxical rise in alcoholism in 1920, the Towns Hospital restricted its practice to drying-out well-to-do alcoholics.
Perhaps the most famous patient was William Griffith Wilson, better known as Bill W., the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. In the early 1930s, Mr. Wilson was consuming more than two quarts of rotgut whiskey daily, a definite health risk according to Alexander Lambert, who found in his copious research that consumers of cheap or bootlegged alcohol were far more prone to seizures, delirium tremens and brain damage than those who drank the expensive stuff. Between 1933 and 1934, at his wife’s urging and on his wealthy brother-in-law’s dime, Mr. Wilson was admitted to Towns four times. The cost upon admission was steep: up to $350 (roughly $5,610 today) for a four- to five-day stay.
Although Mr. Wilson made some progress in temporarily abstaining, he relapsed after each of the first three hospitalizations. It was around this time that he reunited with a drinking buddy named Ebby Thacher. Unlike previous times, when they went out on wild binges, Mr. Thacher told him that he quit booze and was a member of the Oxford Group, a church-based association devoted to living on a higher spiritual plane guided by Christianity. As a demonstration, on Dec. 7, 1934, Mr. Thacher took Mr. Wilson to the Calvary Mission on East 23rd Street and Second Avenue, where the most drunken of New York’s Depression-era down-and-outers went to be fed and, it was hoped, “saved.”
A few days later, a drunken Wilson staggered back into the Towns Hospital. There, his physician, William D. Silkworth, sedated him with chloral hydrate and paraldehyde, two agents guaranteed to help an agitated drunk to sleep, albeit lightly. This was especially important because the medical staff members had to wake patients every hour for at least two days to take the various pills, cathartics and tinctures of the belladonna regime.
On the second or third day of his treatment, Mr. Wilson had his now famous spiritual awakening. Earlier that evening, Mr. Thacher had visited and tried to persuade Mr. Wilson to turn himself over to the care of a Christian deity who would liberate him from the ravages of alcohol. Hours later, depressed and delirious, Mr. Wilson cried out: “I’ll do anything! Anything at all! If there be a God, let him show himself!” He then witnessed a blinding light and felt an ecstatic sense of freedom and peace. When Mr. Wilson told Dr. Silkworth about the event, the physician responded: “Something has happened to you I don’t understand. But you had better hang on to it.”
Hang on to it he did. Indeed, this experience ultimately led Mr. Wilson to abstain from alcohol for the remaining 36 years of his life and to co-create the novel program whereby one alcoholic helps another through a commitment to absolute honesty and a belief that a higher power can help one achieve sobriety.
Long before Mr. Towns touted his cure for alcoholism, belladonna (as well as henbane) was known to cause hallucinations. The hallucinations brought on by alcoholic delirium tremens tend to be a transmogrification of things the alcoholic is actually seeing or experiencing into a realm of sheer terror. A stray coil of rope may appear to be a poisonous cobra; a pattern on the wallpaper seems to transform into a poisonous spider. But they can also be tactile, like the sensation of insects crawling on the skin. Other hallucinations associated with alcohol withdrawal, or alcoholic hallucinosis, tend to be brief and involve hearing accusatory or threatening voices.
Belladonna hallucinations, on the other hand, are typically based on recent discussions the person had but become far more fantastic. Many times, these visions appear to fulfill the wishes one might have had during the inspiring experience.
Several decades after his 1909 announcement, Alexander Lambert took great pains to distance himself from belladonna. Although Dr. Lambert found the detoxification process to be useful in the short run, he became discouraged by its toxicity, its propensity to induce hallucinations and the fact that many of those he treated at Bellevue relapsed and returned for subsequent treatment. Something more was needed, he declared, and that task fell to Bill Wilson and an alcoholic physician from Ohio named Bob Smith, who created Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935.
Were Bill Wilson’s spiritual awakening and influential sobriety the products of a belladonna hallucination shortly after his discussions with his friend Ebby Thacher? Could they have been incited by his alcohol withdrawal symptoms? Or did something else happen to him that science cannot explain? In the end, millions of people who have benefited from Alcoholics Anonymous and similar 12-step programs around the world would say that such pharmacological, physical or spiritual parsing hardly matters.
source: New York Times
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Researchers see promise in treating addictive behaviors with mindfulness meditation
By admin | April 20, 2010
When the stresses of life become too much for him, Ken Volante takes a figurative step back and tries out being SOBER. That “nice little trick,” as he describes it, is the backbone of mindfulness meditation and it helps him remain sober.
It’s a series of steps that allows him to cope with the cravings that would lead him to drink. So important is this practice that he carries with him a laminated card listing those steps.
When he practices being SOBER, he Stops, Observes what’s going on, focuses on his Breathing (divorces himself from what’s going on around him), Expands (focus what’s happening to one’s body) and Responds (but constructively).
A binge drinker for two or three years, Volante, of Madison, recently completed an outpatient program at New Start and became part of a pilot study to see whether mindfulness meditation could help alcoholics remain sober and cope with their addiction. The research project is led by Aleksandra Zgierska, a physician at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Mindfulness meditation is closely identified with Jon Kabat-Zinn, a professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School who founded a stress reduction clinic devoted to using mindfulness meditation.
The 19 people in the UW study took an eight-week course in mindfulness meditation, in which they learned how to be “present in the moment and be receptive to what is happening, without judgment imposed, just observing what’s there,” Zgierska says.
Doing that, she says, breaks the “auto-pilot” behavior that can lead to impulsive, unhealthy reactions.
“Let’s say a person has a lapse, they have one night of drinking or they have one drink. It’s not unusual for us to hear people in treatment say, ‘What I said to myself is that I screwed it up now. I might as well go ahead and finish it off.’ What mindfulness can do is interrupt that way of thinking,” says Michael Waupoose, program director at UW Health-Gateway Recovery in Madison.
Alcoholics, says Zgierska, when confronted with a situation that could lead to drinking - for example, passing a bar or being offered a drink - could rely on using the SOBER technique, or another approach, such as what’s called urge surfing.
Urge surfing is imagining the urge to drink as a wave, and imagining oneself riding the wave and coming down the other side, says Alan Marlatt, director of the Addictive Behaviors Research Center at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Study results awaited
How mindfulness meditation helps alcoholics deal with their desire to drink remains uncertain.
“That’s the big question everyone is trying to get a handle on,” says Marlatt, who has also been studying mindfulness meditation and consulted with Zgierska on her study.
But he does contrast it with other approaches to alcoholism.
“The traditional kinds of behavioral treatment like aversion therapy tried to suppress urges or inhibit cravings or create a condition of aversion to them. Mindfulness is radically different. Let’s take an acceptance approach. You will have urges, you will experience cravings, but we’re going to teach you strategies so that you can manage them and get through them,” Marlatt says.
“I think that it has great potential for the treatment of substance abuse disorders,” says Waupoose.
This is a new approach that clients and clinicians are excited about, says Sarah Bowen, a research scientist at the Addictive Behaviors Research Center in Seattle.
For one thing, it’s an alternative to the traditional so-called 12-step group approach used by Alcoholics Anonymous. It was that alternative that attracted Margee Baxter of Baraboo to mindfulness meditation.
“I’ve done the whole AA thing before. I’m not a real rigid follower. I just kind of like to do my own thing in my own order,” says Baxter, 51, who adds that she had trouble finding a group setting in which she felt comfortable.
Early success
Zgierska’s study was a pilot study, which did not involve a control group, but rather sought to examine how feasible the mindfulness approach would be for alcoholics.
In the first controlled study comparing mindfulness with a 12-step approach, Bowen and her colleagues found that alcoholics and drug users using mindfulness meditation reduced the number of days they used drugs or drank to fewer than half the number of days of those in the 12-step group after two months (2.1 compared with 5.4). But the difference disappeared after four months.
The researchers explain the result by noting that after the initial course in mindfulness, the participants went back to the 12-step groups.
“It is therefore not surprising that MBRP (Mindfulness Based Relapse Prevention) treatment gains were not fully maintained,” the researchers write. They add that mindfulness training may require continuing support to be successful.
The study began with 93 people who used mindfulness meditation and 75 who participated in the 12-step program. At the study’s conclusion, 69 were in the mindfulness group, 49 in the 12-step group.
The results of the study, published late last year in the journal Substance Abuse, should enhance the scientific credibility of mindfulness meditation as a treatment for alcoholism and other addictive disorders, says Bowen. She adds that as an approach it has drawn the interest and praise of many professionals who treat these disorders.
“This provides us yet another opportunity to say, ‘Here is another intervention that has been studied and outcomes are favorable.’ It gives us another tool we can use for treating substance abuse disorders,” Waupoose says.
Bowen says such findings may also increase the use of the technique.
“We may be able to have programs like this integrated into and covered by large organizations, such as the VA,” she says.
Zgierska says she plans on doing further controlled studies of mindfulness meditation. And Waupoose says he aims to introduce the technique to the treatment programs at UW Health-Gateway Recovery.
source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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New drugs to treat alcohol addiction not quick solutions
By admin | April 19, 2010
Since addiction has become recognized as an illness, there has been a quest to have more traditional medication treatment alternatives. Two new medicines to help individuals with alcohol dependence, Campral and Vivitrol, have been introduced in the past five years. We’ll explore the benefits and drawbacks surrounding these two medications.
Patients need to understand when using these medications that the medicine can be a benefit, but it is not a miracle cure. The patient who has a full appreciation of the medicine’s limitations and also a desire to seek treatment will experience the most success.
Campral
In 2004, the FDA approved a this medicine for the maintenance of abstinence in patients with alcohol dependence. Campral (acamprosate calcium) was the first new medicine in almost a decade for the treatment of alcohol dependence.
Research has shown that individuals who abuse alcohol for a long period of time can upset the balance of chemicals in their brains. Campral was introduced to help restore the chemical balance that has been disrupted by long-term excessive drinking. Campral works by targeting an individual’s craving to drink alcohol. The medicine’s best outcome is to help the individual abstain from and stop thinking about the need for alcohol.
Campral is an oral medication. Once an individual begins taking Campral, it usually takes about five days for it to reach effective levels in the body. To be most effective, the individual needs to take Campral for at least six months to a year while he is in treatment for the addiction.
Drawbacks to this medicine include its cost — which can be expensive — and the fact that individuals need to be responsible for taking the medicine three times a day as prescribed. Campral is safe to take with other prescription medications, including those for anxiety, depression and sleep disorders.
My experience has matched what the company has proposed — that Campral is effective for people who are motivated, committed to alcohol abstinence and involved in other treatment programs and Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Campral is not helpful for people who use it as a stand-alone treatment. Often people are looking for an easier, softer treatment and they think Campral is the answer.
Vivitrol
In April 2006, Vivitrol became the first injectable drug available to treat alcohol dependence. The FDA approved Vivitrol for individuals in active treatment who have not had a drink for at least one week.
Since 1984 the oral version of this medication, naltrexone, has been available, and in 2006 the injectable version was developed to make it easier for people recovering from alcohol dependence to use it more consistently.
Vivitrol is a once-a-month injection that is similar to Campral in that its goal is to reduce an individual’s cravings for alcohol and to encourage abstinence.
Vivitrol is an opiate receptor antagonist medicine. It blocks the effect of the brain’s natural opiatelike chemicals, which have a large number of normal functions in the brain that cause pleasurable experiences.
By reducing the pleasurable feeling an individual experiences while drinking, Vivitrol’s goal is to help individuals consume less alcohol and not have the desire to binge drink.
One drawback to Vivitrol is the cost. One injection’s cost can be very expensive and often requires a co-pay, if the individual has insurance. For those without insurance, this medicine can be cost-prohibitive. It is recommended that the individual receive a monthly shot for a period of six months to a year to achieve the best results. If the individual cannot afford Vivitrol, Naltrexone, a once-a-day oral version of Vivitrol, is available at a lower cost.
With active ongoing alcohol dependence treatment, Campral and Vivitrol can be effective medications to help an individual in recovery.
The individual needs to remember that she cannot just take the medication and see the same results as she would if she were getting both treatment and medication.
The individual has to have a lifelong commitment to abstinence from alcohol.
There is a wide variety of alcohol dependence recovery programs available to individuals in need of treatment.
If you know someone or if you are struggling with alcohol dependence, please seek the help of a professional.
James Macke, M.D., is a certified addictionologist for Southwestern Behavioral Healthcare Inc. and Mulberry Center Inc.
source: Evansville Courier and Press
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5 Ways Parents Can Prevent Teenage Drinking
By admin | April 18, 2010
Teenage drinking is such a health risk that pediatricians are now being told to screen all teenagers—and even sixth graders—for alcohol use. That new policy from the American Academy of Pediatrics can be a powerful tool for parents to help their children avoid trouble with alcohol. But first, parents need to learn to give teenagers some privacy in the doctor’s office.
“Tenacious parents who will not leave the examination room” are cited as a major barrier to routine screening for alcohol and drug use by pediatricians in the new teen alcohol screening policy. And what 13-year-old would want to tell Mom she pounded five Vodka Cruisers at a party? “We want to keep families involved,” Patricia Kokotailo, director of adolescent medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health told me, “but some things are very difficult for teenagers to express if it’s not confidential.” She is also lead author of the new guidelines. When Kokotailo sees teenagers in the office, she usually talks with them privately before speaking to the family as a whole, but doesn’t reveal anything that children want kept private.
Mounting research showing that the teenage brain is in the midst an amazing developmental phase was a chief driver behind the call for universal screening for alcohol use. That brain growth spurt gives teens remarkable cognitive powers, but also leaves their brains more vulnerable to the damaging effects of alcohol, drugs, and tobacco. Recent research has also shown that the earlier teenagers start drinking, the more likely they are to have problems as adults with school, jobs, and relationships.
There’s abundant evidence that no matter how much teenagers diss grown-ups, they still view their parents as their biggest role models. And while the pediatricians are calling for some privacy in the exam room, they emphasize that strong parental involvement is key to controlling teens’ drinking. That’s great motivation to tell your children what you might have hesitated to say before:
* Talk with your children about your family’s history of alcohol or drug use. There’s a genetic component to alcoholism, and kids should know if they’re at greater risk of problems.
* Give your children one-on-one time with the pediatrician. Think of it as their lesson in how to navigate the healthcare system.
* Set a firm policy: No alcohol, drugs, or tobacco until age 21. Use the new research on the teenage brain to explain that this is about keeping those brains safe.
* Never host a teenage party with drugs or alcohol. “The liability is enormous if one of those kids goes out and drives and kills himself, or others,” says Kokotailo.
* Show your kids how to use alcohol responsibly; have a beer, sure, but don’t get drunk. Current federal dietary guidelines call for no more than one drink a day for women, two for men.
“Prevention is a big thing,” Kokotailo told me. “We now know better how alcohol affects the brain and neurodevelopment of young people.” Her hope is that with more pediatricians asking about teenage drinking, and with more parents telling children what they need to know about alcohol and keeping a close eye on their behavior, teenagers will be better equipped to make their way to a healthy adulthood.
source: U.S News and World Report
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PTSD doubles the rates of addiction: Early detection is important for a healthy life
By admin | April 17, 2010
“Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can occur after you have been through a traumatic event. A traumatic event is something horrible and scary that you see or that happens to you. During this type of event, you think that your life or others’ lives are in danger. You may feel afraid or feel that you have no control over what is happening.” (WebMD)
A report shows that 45 percent of people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) smoke cigarettes, 52 percent have been diagnosed with alcohol abuse or dependence, and 35 percent have been diagnosed with drug abuse or dependence.
The smoking rate among people with PTSD is about double that of the general population, as is the rate of alcohol abuse and dependence. The drug addiction and dependence rate is almost three times that of the general adult population. (jointogether.org)
Fort Wayne anesthesiologist William Pond, M.D., knows soldiers bring a part of war home with them. He sees first hand how the effects of war can impact the whole family.
Dr. Pond, a colonel in the Air National Guard, has served four tours in Iraq. He believes physicians can help returning troops and their families by being aware of the psychiatric disorders they may suffer. A Rand Corporation study released last April revealed nearly 20 percent of returning soldiers reported symptoms of PTSD, but only half sought treatment. Soldiers who did seek help for PTSD or major depression received minimally adequate treatment for their illnesses, according to researchers. Those who did not seek help said they were concerned that it would threaten their military careers. (ismanet.com)
Early treatment is better because symptoms of PTSD may get worse. Dealing with them now might help stop them from getting worse in the future.
PTSD symptoms can change family life because PTSD symptoms can get in the way of your family life. You may find that you pull away from loved ones, are not able to get along with people, or that you are angry or even violent.
PTSD can be related to other health problems and can worsen physical health problems. Illnesses such as Chronic pain, autoimmune disease and thyroid disease and musculoskeletal conditions. (helpguide.org)
Symptoms
Post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms are commonly grouped into three types: intrusive memories, avoidance and numbing, and increased anxiety or emotional arousal (hyperarousal).
Symptoms of intrusive memories may include:
• Flashbacks, or reliving the traumatic event for minutes or even days at a time
• Upsetting dreams about the traumatic event
•
Symptoms of avoidance and emotional numbing may include:
• Trying to avoid thinking or talking about the traumatic event
• Feeling emotionally numb
• Avoiding activities you once enjoyed
Symptoms of anxiety and increased emotional arousal may include:
• Irritability or anger
• Self-destructive behavior, such as drinking too much
• Trouble sleeping
• Being easily startled or frightened
• Hearing or seeing things that aren’t there
source: Baltimore Examiner
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Remembering The Good Times Helps Alcoholics Stay Sober
By admin | April 16, 2010
Recovering alcoholics who focus on positive experiences in their past may be more successful in managing their addiction. This is the finding of a study by Sarah Davies and Professor Gail Kinman of the University of Bedfordshire that was presented on the 16th April 2010, at the British Psychological Society’s Annual Conference in Stratford-upon-Avon.
A hundred and one members of Alcoholics Anonymous (53 per cent male) completed questionnaires that assessed the extent to which they were oriented towards the past, present or future, and whether this orientation was mostly positive or negative. They were also asked about their spiritual experiences, level of abstinence, compulsion to drink and anxiety.
The results showed that problem drinkers who were oriented towards the past and who had a positive view of their previous life experiences were more likely to be successful in managing alcohol dependency than those with a more negative focus on the past. Participants who held a present hedonistic orientation (focusing on having fun in the here and now) also tended to experience stronger compulsions to drink alcohol.
High levels of spirituality were also found to be a protective factor in helping recovering alcoholics stay sober and manage the anxiety associated with addiction and withdrawal.
Sarah Davies said: “Our findings suggest that therapeutic interventions that help problem drinkers view their past experiences more positively might aid recovery. It is also likely that helping addicts develop a more balanced time perspective, where they are not exclusively oriented towards the past, the present or the future, will be helpful.
“The findings of this study also highlight the important role played by spirituality in helping people recover from alcoholism. This provides strong support for therapies which emphasise the importance of gaining purpose and meaning in life such as the 12-step approach advocated by Alcoholics Anonymous.”
source: British Psychological Society
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Drug Addiction Treatment Facility
By admin | April 15, 2010
Being addicted to drugs is a very serious issue. While in the early stages, it may be possible for a person to go cold turkey, on their own, but this is very rare. Most people need to seek the help of a drug addiction treatment facility. There are many different reasons why these facilities work when going it on your own does not. If you realize that you are addicted to a drug (and recognizing this is the first step to recovery), you may wish to seek out one of these treatment facilities and get help.
When you arrive at a drug addiction treatment facility, you will most likely go through a basic interview after being admitted. This interview will be a one on one talk with a professional at the facility. You will be asked about your drug habits and how they have affected your life. It’s very important that you be open and honest in this interview. A treatment facility is not going to work if you aren’t honest about everything during every step of the way. If you resist treatment, argue with your therapist, or try to hide things you did while on drugs, you will hamper your own recovery process.
Working daily with your therapist is one of the main reasons a drug addiction treatment facility works. You are not attempting to break your drug habit on your own. Your therapist will be able to help you through the withdrawal stage by telling you exactly what to expect and by being there for you. He or she is going to be your primary support system while you are in a facility. Remember that even if what they’re saying doesn’t seem to make sense at the time or even if you do not like the treatment they are suggesting, they have worked with many addicts before, and their methods are tried and tested.
Another support group you will encounter in your treatment is fellow addicts. You will most likely have a group therapy session at least a few times a week, if not more often. These group sessions involve talking about your addiction with others who have gone through the same types of experiences. You can gain valuable insights from hearing about how others fought their addictions. You may even realize that you did some of the same things these other people did without even knowing it. Here, it’s important that you don’t judge others. The group therapy session is designed to be a time of honesty and support, not a time to tell others what they did wrong. The other people in your group session are there to support you, and you should provide them support in return.
Finally, a drug addiction treatment facility works by more or less taking you out of your life for a short period of time. During this time, everything that you used to focus and stress over is gone. You have only one goal: getting over your addiction. You also can’t backslide. Without access to drugs, you can rest assured that you won’t be able to give in or have “just one last time.”
source: http://www.buzzle.com
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WOMEN ARE AT HIGH RISK FOR SUBSTANCE ABUSE
By admin | April 14, 2010
Educate a woman in your life by sharing some of these statistics and have a conversation about alcohol. Alcohol is associated more closely with crimes of sexual violence than any other drug; it is implicated in as many as 73% of all rapes and 70% of all incidents of domestic violence. It is linked to more incidences of violence than illicit drugs, including cocaine, heroin, and PCP.
Barbara Dacri, Executive Director for Crossroads for Woman, an organization solely dedicated to substance abuse treatment of woman remarked “Remember who you always wanted to be is our motto because we believe that in treatment woman learn who they are and move towards recovery. We need to support woman in their journey and having a conversation with girls and young woman early can help prevent some of the devastation that can be caused from alcoholism and other addictions”
Here are some facts about women and girls and alcohol that you might not know*:
· As many as 60% of pregnant women who drink do not discover their condition until after the first trimester. During that time, a woman may unwittingly expose the fetus to dangerous substances.
· The most commonly diagnosed mental health problems among girls and women with alcohol problems are depression, anxiety disorders, borderline personality disorder and eating disorders.
· Teenage girls who drink frequently are almost 6 times more likely to attempt suicide than girls who never drink.
· Up to 50% of people with eating disorders abuse alcohol (and illicit drugs), compared with 9% of the general population, and up to 35% of people who abuse alcohol (and illicit drugs) have eating disorders, compared with 3% of the population.
Guy Cousins, Director of the Maine Office of Substance Abuse asks “If you think that someone in your life may have a problem with alcohol or other drugs there is help for you and for them. The Maine Office of Substance Abuse has a wealth of resources and can help visit us at www.maine.gov/dhhs/osa/”
*These stats were taken from the book Women Under the Influence by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.
source: The Republican Journal
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Alcohol intake of friends, family impact your drinking habits
By admin | April 13, 2010
People who socialize with heavy drinkers are more
likely to imbibe a bit too much themselves.
And the same holds true for teetotalers: Those who
have non-drinking friends and relatives are more
likely not to consume alcohol themselves, a new
study found.
“People are organized by their drinking behavior
more than would be predicted by chance alone,”
said study lead author Dr. J. Niels Rosenquist, a
research fellow in the departments of psychiatry and
health-care policy at Massachusetts General
Hospital and Harvard Medical School. “There
appears to be clustering.”
The effect, which may be just as great as family
history and genetics, suggests that new
interventions for alcohol abuse may be in order.
“In addition to working with individuals who are
drinking more than is good for them, we need to
come up with new ways to address this on more of a
public health level, looking at groups of people and
some of the settings in which they congregate and
reinforce each other’s drinking habits,” said Dr.
Ralph Manchester, director of the University Health
Service at the University of Rochester in New York.
The study authors gathered data on more than
12,000 people who were participating in the long-
running Framingham Heart Study. People were asked
about their alcohol consumption and their social
networks several times over a span of 30 years, from
1971 to 2003.
People whose friends or relatives drank heavily were
50% more likely to also drink heavily compared to
people who weren’t connected with heavy drinkers.
And they were 36% more likely to consume a lot of
alcohol if a friend of a friend was a heavy drinker,
the study found.
There was even a measurable effect if a friend of a
friend of a friend drank a lot — in other words, three
degrees of separation.
The researchers also found in general that being
surrounded by heavy drinkers increased the
reported alcohol consumption by about 70%, while
being surrounded by abstainers decreased reported
alcohol consumption by half.
While drinking habits of friends and relatives did
influence individuals, how nearby neighbors and
co-workers conducted themselves did not.
The study findings are published in the April 6
issue of Annals of Internal Medicine.
Previous studies have found similar ripple effects
for weight gain, smoking, happiness and
depression, but, unlike alcohol, these went only one
way. For example, if an individual was around
people who gain weight, that individual was more
likely to pack on pounds as well.
“There seems to be sort of a social transmission,
and this fits into that broader pattern,” said Dr. Marc
Galanter, director of the division of alcoholism and
drug abuse at New York University School of
Medicine.
And the social-transmission factor seems to be
stronger among females, though it’s not clear why.
“The gender of your friend is significant, meaning
that if you have two friends, male and female, and
the male started drinking heavily, that would be less
likely to affect you than if a female started drinking
heavily,” said Rosenquist.
The question then is what could be the reason for
that, Rosenquist said.
“This is pure speculation at this point, but it may be
something to do with social norms by gender,” he
added. “For example, women tend to drink less
under certain social norms and, if they start
drinking heavily, it may be more noticeable among
groups of friends and colleagues and may have a
bigger effect on their drinking behavior than if a
male started drinking heavily.”
Of course, some people have long suspected that
heavy drinking could travel in social circles.
“We know from alcoholism treatment that you want
to stay away from people who have drinking problems if you have a drinking problem,” Galanter
said. “AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) says just to sever
your ties with those people to be sure that you stay
abstinent.”
source: USA Today
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Alcohol Check-In Sees Record Crowd
By admin | April 12, 2010
Drawn by the promise of free water bottles, more than 1,330 students flocked to the Malkin Athletic Center last Friday for National Alcohol Screening Day, marking a record level of participation that rose by almost 40 percent from last year.
The annual event, which takes place at hospitals, community centers, and universities around the country, requires individuals to fill out a brief survey about their alcohol use and consult privately with a health professional about their responses.
Ryan M. Travia, the director of Harvard’s Office of Alcohol and Other Drug Services (AODS), said that the turnout was especially high this year because students have learned to anticipate the event and encourage their friends to come.
“This is our fifth year of doing this, and the event is institutionalized now,” Travia said. “We had a full court press with advertising, but in my mind, word of mouth is what really works.”
He added that the data from the screening, along with student responses to University Health Services’ recent health assessment survey, will hopefully provide UHS with valuable insight into student drinking patterns.
Travia said that the information will be especially important this year because AODS has projected that alcohol-related hospital admissions at Harvard will rise again after jumping by 35 percent last year.
“We continue to remain curious about the uptick,” he said. “We’ll see if the numbers bear out much differently than in previous years.”
According to C. Chloe Orlando ’11, events chair for the Drug and Alcohol Peer Advisor (DAPA) program, the screenings also give students a valuable opportunity to reflect on the role that alcohol plays in their lives.
“Some students come here with serious drinking problems,” Orlando said. “Some of them realize it and some don’t.”
Gregory Rudolph, a freshman proctor who served as a screener for the event, said he found the variation in self-reported experiences to be the most striking aspect of his conversations with students.
“There are some people who never drink in their four years here, and others are drinking heavily every weekend,” Rudolph said.
AODS coordinated the day-long event with help from around 40 students who work as DAPAs as well as nearly 50 screeners drawn from across UHS and the local community.
source: The Harvard Crimson
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A path to recovery
By admin | April 11, 2010
Michael Walsh lost 16 years to alcohol and cocaine addiction. Now sober, he’s trying to help others find their way out through a new secular peer-support group called LifeRing.
Alcoholics Anonymous was instrumental in his recovery, but as an atheist, Walsh, now 41, struggled with the concept of the higher power found in AA’s program.
At seven years of age, Walsh’s mother and alcoholic father divorced. At the age of 10, he had his first brush with marijuana, cigarettes and alcohol. From the age of 12 to 17, Walsh was sexually abused by an adult male from the Lower Mainland.
“I shut down mentally,” Walsh says of that period. “I withdrew from a lot of friends and family. It was very traumatic. I was embarrassed and ashamed. My family had no inkling this was happening. I think they still don’t know.”
Today, Walsh’s appearance is clean-cut, his voice soft. Seated in a spotless downstairs suite that he shares with his girlfriend on a tree-lined street of mature homes in Victoria’s Fairfield district, Walsh lets the dark details of his past tumble out slowly.
His eyes moisten, and he knits his fingers together as he ponders the damage addiction has wreaked upon his life and the lives of those around him.
A residential rehabilitation program, psychologists, psychiatrists, AA and group therapy all helped Walsh attain sobriety. He says weekly meetings are essential to maintaining that state, but the only weekly meetings he could find were connected to AA.
“At the end of meetings, we’d hold hands and say a prayer, or there was hugging,” Walsh says. “I was never comfortable with that degree of physical contact.”
He learned that others in the recovery community shared his desire for a secular support group, so he connected with LifeRing, a 100-group network with its base in California.
“You’re dealing with enough when you’re fighting an addiction, you should be able to direct that recovery in a way that gives you as few roadblocks as possible,” Walsh says.
Amen to that, says Irene, a representative at AA’s international office in New York. In keeping with AA’s philosophy, she asked that we not print her surname. AA does not comment on other addiction support groups, to offer endorsement or criticism.
Irene notes that AA’s membership covers the whole spectrum of belief from atheists to those following a particular faith.
“They’re all accepted completely as they are,” Irene says. “There’s no conformity required.” As for the higher power, members are encouraged to interpret that in any way that is helpful, from calling the people in their meeting group a higher power to giving it a specific religious designation.
Irene says there’s no real way to measure AA’s success or how many rely on a higher power for recovery, as AA keeps no records or attendance sheets and collects no dues or fees.
“We do hear of studies saying we have a certain success rate, but I don’t know how they got those numbers when we don’t collect data ourselves,” Irene says.
Walsh is quick to say he has no desire to criticize AA. “AA was invaluable to me in my recovery.”
Walsh’s tone is similar to that of clients seen by Drew Barnes, acting manager of rehabilitation and case management at Eric Martin Pavilion. Barnes says he hasn’t heard clients speak in strong negative terms about having a spiritual component in their recovery, but he says the addition of a new resource in Victoria is a good thing.
“Addiction-recovery is highly individualized,” Barnes says. “The greater the diversity of resources, the greater the chance that individuals will find something to fit their needs. Some people might use both an AA and a LifeRing resource together.”
LifeRing meetings are much like AA. Peer support and a commitment to complete abstinence from addictive substances make up the basic tenets of both programs.
AA members use a 12-step program and have mentors called sponsors, people who have overcome their addiction. LifeRing utilizes neither. Instead, it uses cognitive behaviorism, motivational interviewing, solution-focused therapy and other clinical approaches to recovery.
Cameron Delacroix is an outreach worker with the Umbrella Society. He says, “There’s a million different paths to recovery from addiction, and the more things that are available to people, the better. It’s (LifeRing) had good success in other places and we’re very happy it’s here in Victoria.”
George Lowery, acting co-ordinator for Vancouver Island Health Authority’s Withdrawal Management Services, agrees. “The more options we can give a person in any stage of their recovery, the better. Will it be an answer for some? Yes. For others? No.”
source: http://www.canada.com
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Denial is a sure way to prolong our hangover
By admin | April 10, 2010
We must fully debate our attitude to alcohol, or acknowledgment of our dysfunctionality will be suppressed, writes BRIAN O’CONNELL
A soon-to-be-published study attempts to define, with some clarity, what the health consequences of our national hangover are.
The report examined alcohol-attributable deaths and hospitalisation in Ireland from 2000 to 2004. In that period, one-in-10 bed-days were due to the harmful effects of alcohol.
The report’s author, Dr Jennifer Martin found that the cost of bed-days attributable to the negative effects of alcohol was €953 million.
Dr Martin found the health burden related to alcohol in Ireland was high and unnecessary. Figures related to alcohol-related deaths were moderate in middle to older age groups, but the proportion of age-specific deaths attributed to the negative effects of alcohol was much higher in younger age groups.
Almost one-quarter of deaths in males aged 15 to 39 and one-sixth of deaths in females of the same age could be attributed to alcohol’s negative effects.
Dr Martin’s study is welcome, partly – and somewhat surprisingly – because research data on alcohol-related problems in Ireland is limited. In previous reports, authors have tended to focus on specific groupings within society, making a comprehensive picture difficult to highlight with any great accuracy.
We know our teens regularly appear near the top of European binge-drinking leagues, and that numbers presenting for alcohol treatment have risen in the past decade. We’re less clear on the great swathe of Irish drinkers and the health and social costs resulting from their drinking.
Among the recommendations in Dr Martin’s study is for a high-quality alcohol consumption survey and emergency department database to capture accurate data. This seems a no-brainer. Ireland’s AE departments are windows into society’s ills and can function as public health observatories if the information is collected properly.
Currently that is not happening, and neither the political will nor the public pressure appears to exist to make it happen.
It’s important we collect this data, so that the next time drinks-company-sponsored sporting events are broadcast or foreign dignitaries are pictured on Irish soil with a pint of black stuff in hand, we as a society can be fully aware of the pay-off for our buttressing of those images.
The past few months have seen further chapters added to the tale of Ireland’s dysfunctional relationship with alcohol. The debate on Good Friday drinking was a national one, questioning our right as a nation to party. Like so often when it comes to addressing our relationship with alcohol, money talks, and in this instance, the pay-off for local businesses in Limerick overrode a more philosophical discourse on the role alcohol plays in our sporting and cultural events.
The furore around head shops and their products has also been a curious one, not least to public health campaigners, who have been highlighting Ireland’s difficulties with alcohol to muted response for decades. Spurred by media campaigns, Government Ministers have rushed to bar head shop products and their sale.
Politicians of all creeds have shown little reticence in speaking out against the presence of head shops in their localities. Perhaps if the same effort was shown regarding our other legal mind-altering outlets and liquids, a genuine national discourse might follow.
As long as the image of us as a booze nation is propagated unquestioned, acknowledgment of our underlying dysfunctionality will be suppressed.
Six months on from a book of mine detailing both my own and Ireland’s dysfunctional relationship with alcohol, I get weekly calls from people fighting against alcohol dependency.
The calls come from all kinds of people. Many simply want to offload their struggles to a sympathetic ear and hear an optimistic note in an otherwise desperate period of their lives.
Some contact me because they fear their families can take no more, and because they are scared and want to know what treatment might entail. In several cases, they have called me before talking to their doctor, because the shame of admitting defeat to Irish society’s great social binder can be paralysing.
What do I say to them? What can you say to a person struggling with drink and living in a country in such denial? I tell them some of my story, of my troubled 20s and rehabilitation, and my happier 30s. I talk about shame, guilt, life choices, and sober living.
I congratulate them for taking the first step and making contact. I say I never thought I would be able to enjoy a night out without booze. Now, I can’t imagine a life with it.
Some of them are not yet ready to get off the rollercoaster. Others bravely take the next step, seek counselling, or join an Alcoholics Anonymous group and begin restoring their lives.
During the round of media interviews while promoting my book, many interviewers were less interested in why we Irish drink the way we do, and more concerned with how many pints I could drink before falling over.
Like it or not, we’re obsessed with romanticising hazy excess in Ireland.
Until a more sobering picture of our relationship with alcohol emerges, that obsession is likely to remain unchallenged.
source: http://www.irishtimes.com
Brian O’Connell is a journalist and author of Wasted – A Sober Journey Through Drunken Ireland ( Gill and Macmillan).
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Using Stem Cells to Study Alcohol Dependence
By admin | April 9, 2010
An estimated 14 million Americans – one in eight – are addicted to alcohol or will develop an alcohol use disorder. Yet despite the very high personal and economic costs, the vast majority of individuals with an alcohol use disorder never receive treatment.
Researchers at the UConn Health Center are trying to do something about that. And they have a powerful ally – stem cells.
Custom-Made Neurons
Part of the reason so many people suffering from alcohol dependence never receive treatment is that scientists studying brain disorders – including the neural chemistry that puts some people at risk of becoming alcoholics – have been stymied by an insurmountable natural barrier: Until recently it has been nearly impossible for scientists to study living neurons, the cells of the brain, and explore the impact of various drugs upon them.
“Studying brain tissue would be very helpful in understanding and treating a wide variety of disorders, including alcohol use disorders,” says Dr. Henry Kranzler, professor of psychiatry and genetics and developmental biology. Unlike all the other organs in the body, however, the brain is enclosed completely within the skull. Invasive surgery to obtain living neural tissue for experimentation is ethically out of the question.
But Kranzler and his colleague, associate professor of psychiatry Dr. Jonathan Covault, have found a way around that longstanding problem. Thanks to recent breakthroughs that are revolutionizing stem cell technology, they have embarked upon a series of equally revolutionary research projects which, they hope, will yield much more effective treatment for alcohol dependence within a few years.
The technology that is making this research possible is induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.
First generated by a researcher at Japan’s Kyoto University in 2007, they are stem cells artificially produced by compelling the expression of certain genes in somatic cells – cells extracted from practically any part of the body. It was a very significant development in stem cell research, because it meant that researchers can now produce stem cells that seem to function, in all respects, like stem cells taken from human embryos.
The technology spread swiftly around the world. Many of the UConn scientists now engaged in increasingly productive stem cell research are working with induced pluripotent cells.
When Xuejun “June” Li, assistant professor of neuroscience, joined the faculty of the Health Center from Fudan University in Shanghai, China, she came with substantial experience of making neurons from embryonic stem cells. She was ideally equipped to help Kranzler and Covault produce neurons using the new iPS technology.
Though it is theoretically possible to produce iPS cells from any kind of somatic cells, doing so is hardly simple. The essential somatic cells used at UConn are skin cells, says Stormy Chamberlain, an assistant professor who works in the lab of Marc Lalande, chair of genetics and developmental biology and director of the Stem Cell Institute.
Chamberlain, who helped establish the techniques for making iPS cells at UConn, has created iPS cells for Kranzler and Covault. She has also produced them for her own research, aimed at creating a human cell culture model of Angelman Syndrome, a devastating human neurodevelopmental disorder that causes mental retardation, lack of speech, the inability to coordinate muscle movements, and seizures.
“Making iPS cells from skin tissue makes sense for many genetic disorders, because we have banks of donated skin tissue,” says Chamberlain, “and the cells divide better in a culture dish than other kinds of somatic cells.”
“Better” is a relative concept, however. There is no assembly line process for creating iPS cells. They develop on their own schedule and cannot be rushed.
First, donor cells are isolated and cultured to produce fibroblasts, the cells that produce collagen and the extracellular matrix, the cellular framework of all animal tissue. Then stem cell-related genes are injected into the fibroblasts. This process, called transfection, is routinely used in cancer research to infect cells and compel them to grow in aberrant ways.
From that point, says Chamberlain, “it takes about 30 days to iPS cells. We generally produce five to 10 cell lines per experiment. Then it takes another three weeks to turn the iPS cells into something that looks like a neuron. To produce an actual functioning neuron takes about 10 weeks.”
Unprecedented Research Opportunities
With supplemental funds to two grants from the National Institutes of Health, Kranzler and Covault have commenced a group of research projects that, together, are unlike any previous research on alcohol dependence. For the first time, they are testing the effects of alcohol and a number of pharmaceuticals on actual neurons.
“Our research focuses on the mechanism of alcohol’s effects,” explains Kranzler. “We are looking at the neural base of alcohol dependence risk and the mechanism of action of medications to treat the disorder.”
To initiate the stem cell applications for this work, Kranzler and Covault obtained skin biopsies from more than 50 people and established a repository of skin cell cultures for further examination using stem cell technologies.
“As proof of principle, we have used skin cells from six subjects to generate pluripotent stem cells, and we have successfully created neural cultures from three of these to develop mature neurons,” says Covault. “Going forward, we will compare neurons derived from healthy subjects with those from alcohol-dependent patients. We’ll be evaluating their ability to support electrical signaling and form neuron-to-neuron connections, as well as their pattern of chemical and gene expression responses to single and repeated exposures to alcohol.”
Beyond that, the researchers will explore the response of the neurons to treatment with topiramate, a promising medication for the treatment of alcohol dependence. But Kranzler is quick to point out that the use of neurons generated from iPS cells opens up possibilities for testing a host of potential therapies. Topiramate is only the beginning.
Whether or not their research eventually results in an effective new treatment, both doctors agree that the iPS technology has made unprecedented research opportunities available to researchers.
“The development of this technology has important potential applications to other psychiatric and neurological disorders,” says Kranzler. “The capacity to characterize neural tissue derived from patients with these disorders could substantially enhance our understanding of their causes and treatments.”
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Alcohol indulgence during pregnancy ups epilepsy risk in new born kids
By admin | April 8, 2010
Alcoholism during pregnancy has never been encouraged by doctors worldwide but now there are more reasons to this. A new study has established that Alcohol consumption during pregnancy poses threat to the new born in the form of epilepsy. The study reiterates the fact that women during pregnancy should keep away from alcohol and lead a healthy lifestyle. The study has been published in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research journal.
The research to study the affects of Alcoholism during pregnancy has been carried out by researchers at Queens University in Ontario. Prior to this many researches have taken place in this field which have linked alcoholism during pregnancy to many other complications. The study however has not been able to point out the cause of the linkage between alcoholism and epilepsy.
Maternal drinking during pregnancy often results in a condition known as fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD).The children who suffer from FASD are exposed to six times greater risk of suffering from Epilepsy , the study reported. They also were exposed to the probability of undergoing through one seizure at least during their lifetime. “This report builds on a growing body of evidence that maternal drinking during pregnancy may put a child at greater risk for an even wider variety of neurologic and behavioral health problems than we had appreciated before” Dan Savage, Regents’ Professor at the University of New Mexico’s Department of Neurosciences said.
The results of the study were arrived at after examining histories of 425 individuals from two FASD clinics. The subjects were aged between two and forty nine. The researchers tried to correlate alcohol consumption during pregnancy with the occurrence of epilepsy and seizures. Around one percent developed epilepsy, but with FASD 6 percent of people suffered from this disorder.12 percent of them had at least one seizure.
The message of the study on Alcoholism during pregnancy is loud and clear. Alcoholism is a big no for pregnant woman. “The consensus recommendation of scientists and clinical investigators, along with public health officials around the world, is very clear — a woman should abstain from drinking during pregnancy as part of an overall programme of good prenatal care.” said Dr Dan Savage, a neuroscientist at the University of New Mexico.
source: http://infocera.com
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Youth Risky Behavior Survey results ‘alarming’
By admin | April 7, 2010
Drug and Alcohol Taskforce members presented the Youth Risk Behavior Survey to the Gilford School Board Monday night and said they found certain trends and statistics to be alarming.
Gilford selectmen were also invited to sit in on the presentation, along with the town administrator and Gilford police officers.
High school nurse and taskforce member Meg Jenkins said that about 90 questions were on the survey, which targeted junior and senior GHS students. This is the third year GHS students have participated in the survey, deemed “reliable” but not 100 percent accurate.
Jenkins said she would attempt to summarize the highlights of the survey, and although tobacco use is down, it seems that drug usage, and binge drinking especially, is slowly on the rise and above state averages.
“We work hard to educate the community,” said Jenkins, who said tackling these issues should not only be a school district goal, but a community goal. “We have seen some improvements, but some trends are not where we would like to see them. It is important to know what is happening in town.”
Within the last 30 days, about 30 percent of the 439 students who filled out the survey reportedly got in a car with a person who had been drinking, a percentage above the state average, and up about 5 percent from last year, said Jenkins. She said that an increased percentage of students have also had at least one alcoholic beverage within the last 30 days, and she reminded the board and the audience that all these students are well under the drinking age.
“We tend to mirror where the state is, yet unfortunately we are on the higher end of this,” said Jenkins.
She said that binge drinking is perhaps the biggest concern, and that about 42 percent of the students who took the survey said they engaged in underage binge drinking, which constitutes as five drinks or more in a sitting.
“We are still higher than the state and Belknap County. These numbers are important,” said Jenkins. “Your children are making decisions they wouldn’t normally make (when binge drinking). This results in accidents, vandalism, and promiscuity, which can lead to health problems and alcoholism.”
Jenkins said that marijuana usage is up to 40 percent and higher than the county average, while the state average is down. Although she said she is not pleased with some of these results, she said there is “a flip side;” a large percentage of students are not engaging in these activities, or not engaging in these activities before the age of 13.
The taskforce also threw a new question into the mix this year, since prescription pill abuse has become an issue with some high school students. On waste day last year, Jenkins said about 1,800 prescription medicines were discarded of, and that kids are rummaging through medicine cabinets in their homes on a national level. She said she was also concerned with the fact that high school students are handed stronger and addicting medications, such as Vicodin, after dental surgery, when extra strength Tylenol may do the trick.
Jenkins said that sexual intercourse percentages were up as well, and higher than state and county averages.
Jenkins did have some good news for the board. She said underage alcohol related arrests are down and that the Gilford Police Department keeps this aspect under control.
“We want to look at this as a community issue. We are receptive to suggestions, and this is bigger than our buildings, our county, our state or country,” said Jenkins.
After listening to the presentation, Superintendent Paul DeMinico said these numbers may seem negative and intimidating at first, but there is still hope.
“These numbers are hard to swallow for me sometimes, but I think it is absolutely necessary to follow this,” said DeMinico. “There is good information in terms of the positive in the survey.”
DeMinico explained that years ago, during the Reagan administration, tobacco use was a severe, top concern in the country and within schools, and now it appears that numbers have gone down. He suggested that the taskforce perhaps look into how tobacco use has been dealt with throughout the school system, since it proved to be successful, and apply these same maneuvers to newer issues, such as binge drinking among high school students.
source: http://www.winnisquamecho.net
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Topics: Alcohol Addiction, Drug Addiction, teenagers | No Comments »
