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Non-medical use of prescription drugs (NMUPD) is a serious public health concern in the U.S. Investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps have identified significant associations between the non-medical use of prescription drugs and unhealthy weight management practices. They suggest that health educators in the school setting, as well as other health professionals who provide services to adolescents, should focus on healthy weight management strategies and other substance-specific messages. Their findings are published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. About 17% of U.S. students in grades 9-12 have engaged in NMUPD according to the latest Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a nationally representative cross-sectional survey published by the CDC. Reasons include pain relief, getting high, improving concentration, and weight loss. This study is the first to investigate the association between NMUP...

Cigarette smoke causes acute endothelial damage, vascular and systemic inflammation, and cellular aging. Red wine stimulates the formation of endothelium-dependent relaxation factors such as nitric oxide, which improve endothelial function in coronary arteries possibly because of the high phenol concentration in red wine. "However, sparse data exist on the short term potential vasoprotective effects of red wine in smoking-healthy individuals," explained lead investigator Viktoria Schwarz, MD, of the University of Saarland, Homburg, Germany. "The aim of our study was to investigate the acute vascular effects of red wine consumption prior to 'occasional lifestyle smoking' in healthy individuals. We found evidence that preconsumption of red wine prevented most of the vascular injury caused by smoking." The study examined the effects of smoking on various biochemical processes in the blood and vessels of 20 healthy non-smokers who volunteered to smoke thre...

"The children of parents with alcohol problems are at much greater risk for underage drinking and developing a substance use disorder," says the study's author, Rina Das Eiden, PhD, senior research scientist at RIA. "It's important to understand when and under what circumstances such problems develop, so we can craft interventions to steer this high-risk population away from substance use and its attendant problems." Eiden examined different pathways to adolescent substance use, starting in infancy, for children of parents with alcohol use disorder (AUD), and found that maternal warmth and sensitivity in early childhood played a significant role. "When mothers can be warm and sensitive during interactions with their toddlers, even under the stresses associated with their partners' alcohol problems, there is a lower likelihood of adolescent substance use," Eiden says. Parents with AUD demonstrated lower rates of maternal sensitivity towar...

Medical marijuana (inventory picture). Credit score: © goodmanphoto / Fotolia Utilizing marijuana may assist some alcoholics and folks hooked on opioids kick their habits, a UBC examine has discovered. "Analysis suggests that individuals could also be utilizing hashish as an exit drug to cut back use of drugs which can be doubtlessly extra dangerous, resembling opioid ache remedy," mentioned the examine's lead investigator Zach Walsh, affiliate professor of psychology at UBC's Okanagan campus. This complete assessment of analysis on medical hashish use and psychological well being additionally discovered some proof that hashish might assist with signs of melancholy, PTSD and social anxiousness. Nevertheless, the assessment concluded that hashish use may not be really useful for circumstances resembling bipolar dysfunction and psychosis. "In reviewing the restricted proof on medical hashish, it seems that sufferers ...

The study, published in  Oncotarget , was led by Irfan Rahman, Ph.D. professor of Environmental Medicine at the UR School of Medicine and Dentistry, and is the first scientific study to address e-cigarettes and their detrimental effect on oral health on cellular and molecular levels. Electronic cigarettes continue to grow in popularity among younger adults and current and former smokers because they are often perceived as a healthier alternative to conventional cigarettes. Previously, scientists thought that the chemicals found in cigarette smoke were the culprits behind adverse health effects, but a growing body of scientific data, including this study, suggests otherwise. "We showed that when the vapors from an e-cigarette are burned, it causes cells to release inflammatory proteins, which in turn aggravate stress within cells, resulting in damage that could lead to various oral diseases," explained Rahman, who last year published a study about the damaging effects ...

n "Electronic-cigarette Use and Respiratory Symptoms in Adolescents," published online ahead of print in the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, lead author Rob McConnell, MD, professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, and colleagues report an association between e-cigarette use and persistent cough, bronchitis and congestion or phlegm in the Southern California Children's Health Study. "E-cigarettes are known to deliver chemicals toxic to the lungs, including oxidant metals, glycerol vapor, diketone flavoring compounds and nicotine," Dr. McConnell said. "However, there has been little study of the chronic health effects of e-cigarettes. The Children's Health Study provided an opportunity to examine bronchitic symptoms common among smokers to see if the risk was also increased in users of e-cigarettes." The researchers analy...