New links for interesting articles about addiction. Check them out!
Tobacco, nicotine, and Smoking
Medical News Today: According to a recent study in China there is a new effective strategy for treating tobacco addiction. Researchers have developed a novel tea filter that seems to help with cigarette addiction. (Note: this link doesn’t give direct access to the article so we’re basing the summary on the article itself)
SAMHSA: According to a new nationwide study, adolescent smoking may be influenced by mothers’ smoking or depression. The study states that adolescents living with mothers who smoke are 25.6% more likely to smoke. It’s frightening to think that 1.4 million 11-17 year old kids started smoking in the past 12 months!
Science Daily: Exposure to prenatal smoking may lead to psychiatric problems. According to new research, exposure to prenatal smoking can increase the need for psychotropic medications in childhood and young adulthood.
Hard drugs
Science Daily: A newly developed and tested modified enzyme has been shown to break down cocaine into inactive products nearly 1000 times faster than the human body. The article states further that cocaine toxicity due to drug overdose results in more than half a million emergency room visits annually. This new enzyme could help prevent OD deaths by breaking down the drug.
Fox News: The number of soldiers seeking opiate abuse treatment has been increasing, going up from 89 in 2004 to 529 last year.
Addiction Inbox: A study that uses the Stroop test (have to name the colors of words and not the words themselves) seems to be a good predictor for addiction treatment effectiveness and drop out rates. Pretty cool stuff!
Alcohol
Join Together: This is a short article summarizing research which shows that rare childhood leukemia is tied to drinking during pregnancy. According to this research, children whose mothers are drinking during pregnancy are 56 percent more likely to develop a rear form of leukemia called AML.
Addiction Tomorrow: Britain is considering raising the prices of their very low-end alcohols most likely in an attempt to damper the young adults that binge drink and of alcoholics since they are most often the ones that drink the low-end alcohol.