Volume 14 Issue 3, Fall 2022

Suicide deaths involving heavy alcohol use have increased significantly among women in recent years, according to a new study supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). Previous research has shown that alcohol is a risk factor for suicidal behavior and that women have a higher risk than men do for suicide while intoxicated. And in the two decades leading up to 2018, suicide death rates in the United States increased, with the rate among women increasing faster than the rate among men.

Gene editing could one day help reverse anxiety and excessive drinking caused by adolescent exposure to alcohol, according to a new study in rats supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). A team of investigators led by NIAAA grantee Subhash C. Pandey, Ph.D., the Joseph A. Flaherty-endowed professor of psychiatry and director of the Alcohol Research Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago, published a report of the findings in the May 2022 issue of Science Advances.

Scientists at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) have released a new definition of recovery from alcohol use disorder (AUD) that addresses limitations associated with prior AUD recovery definitions and lays the groundwork for future recovery-related research. In a recent review article, Brett Hagman, Ph.D., Dan Falk, Ph.D., Raye Litten, Ph.D., and NIAAA Director George F. Koob, Ph.D., explain that

According to the 2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 14.5 million (nearly 15 million) people ages 12 and older met the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) criteria for past-year alcohol use disorder (AUD).