National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

A 12-year study of 38,077 male health professionals found that men who drank alcohol three or more days per week had a reduced risk of heart attack compared with men who drank less frequently. Men who drank less than one drink a day had similar risk reduction to those who drank three. Many epidemiologic studies have reported that moderate drinking-for...

Two experimental compounds prevent one of the cellular events that is a likely contributor to fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), according to a new study supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). A report of the study, by scientists at Harvard Medical School and the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), appears in the...

Researchers at the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center, University of California-San Francisco, report in the June 14 issue of Cell that the brain chemical messenger dopamine and ethanol (beverage alcohol) act through independent mechanisms to synergistically produce a common cellular response that sustains voluntary alcohol consumption. The work may provide an additional target for pharmacologic treatment of alcoholism. "Today's...

Alcohol and your health - where do you draw the line? This is the theme of the 2002 National Alcohol Screening Day, a program of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Screening for Mental Health, Inc., and their partners. Free, anonymous screening for alcohol problems, information on the health consequences...

The consequences of college drinking are larger and more destructive than commonly realized, according to a new study supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). Commissioned by the NIAAA Task Force on College Drinking, the study reveals that drinking by college students age 18-24 contributes to an estimated 1,400 student deaths, 500,000 injuries, and 70,000 cases...

Bernice Porjesz, Ph.D., Department of Psychiatry, State University of New York, Health Sciences Center at Brooklyn, and others from six of the nine universities that comprise NIAAA's Collaborative Study of the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA) report in today's online version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (99[6]:3729-3733) significant linkage and linkage disequilibrium between beta brain wave (EEG)...

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism announces a 5-year initiative funded at approximately $50 million to define the brain circuits and mechanisms that underlie behavioral responses to chronic and excessive alcohol consumption. The multidisciplinary Integrative Neuroscience Initiative on Alcoholism ( INIA) will integrate research knowledge from animal and human studies and multiple analytic approaches to understand the behavioral...

Barbara Foley, R.N., Executive Director and Co-Founder of Emergency Nurses CARE (EN CARE) of Alexandria, Virginia, today was named the fourth recipient of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s annual Senator Harold Hughes Memorial Award. The award is made annually to a nonresearcher who has used alcohol research findings to foster research, prevention, or treatment, thereby translating research...

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism today announces a 5-year prospective study on the role of alcohol use and abuse in determining patient outcomes for aging veterans with and without HIV infection. The study is an expansion of the ongoing Veterans Aging Cohort Study (VACS), initiated in 1999 and supported by a number of NIH components including the...

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory report in the current Journal of Neurochemistry (Volume 78, Number 5) that they used gene therapy techniques to increase levels of dopamine D2 (DRD2) receptors and reduce drinking in rats previously trained to self-administer alcohol. Panayotis Thanos, Ph.D., Nora Volkow, Ph.D., and colleagues used a partially inactivated virus as a...

A team of alcohol researchers led by Jack Stapleton, M.D., of the Department of Internal Medicine, University of Iowa College of Medicine and the Iowa City Veterans Affairs Medical Center, report in the September 6 New England Journal of Medicine , Volume 345, 2001 ( Effect of co-infection with GB virus type C (Hepatitis G Virus) on survival of HIV-infected...

A National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism analysis of data from 1997, the first year that all states and the District of Columbia included Hispanic origin on death certificates, reveals that risk for liver cirrhosis mortality is higher among white men and women of Hispanic origin than among non-Hispanic black and white Americans. Cirrhosis death rates are highest among...

Researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism have found that anticipation of increasing monetary rewards selectively activates the human nucleus accumbens of the ventral striatum. Since this brain region is implicated in animal studies of alcohol and drug self-administration, the research may help lead to methods for understanding the biological basis of alcohol and drug craving in...

Marijuana-like substances (endocannabinoids) intrinsic in animals and humans act at specific receptors on the blood vessel wall to produce vasodilation, the generalized blood vessel dilation seen in many patients with advanced liver cirrhosis, according to an article by George Kunos, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues in the July 1 issue of Nature Medicine (Volume 7, Number 7; Endocannabinoids acting at vascular...

An article in today’s Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) Journal (Chen, S; Wilkemeyer, M; Sulik, K; and Charness, M. Octanol antagonism of ethanol teratogenesis, FASEB J. 10.1096/fj00-08620fje and Volume 15, Number 9, July 2001) reports that the long-chain alcohol 1-octanol successfully blocks a mechanism leading to fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). Viewed as paradoxical because it is the...

Viewing pictures of alcoholic beverages activates the prefrontal cortex and the anterior thalamus in alcoholics but not in moderate drinkers, report Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) researchers in the April Archives of General Psychiatry. The research team is the first to use fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to examine whether alcohol cues stimulate specific brain regions. "The activated brain...

Health care professionals at more than 1200 sites stand ready to educate the public about signs and symptoms of alcohol problems during the third annual National Alcohol Screening Day (NASD) on Thursday, April 5, 2001. Individuals concerned about their drinking or that of another may access free, confidential screening and research-based alcohol information at college and community health and counseling...

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) today announces the start of Combining Medications and Behavioral Interventions (COMBINE), a nationwide study that targets persons with the diagnosis alcohol dependence, commonly known as alcoholism. COMBINE is the first national study to evaluate the effectiveness of behavioral treatments alone and in combination with medications. It begins at a time when...

Ms. Migs Woodside, founder and former President and Chief Executive Officer of the New York-based Children of Alcoholics Foundation, today was named the third recipient of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism's annual Senator Harold Hughes Memorial Award. NIAAA Director Enoch Gordis, M.D., announced the award today in Washington, D.C., at the 2001 Public Policy Conference on Alcohol...

Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna E. Shalala has announced the availability of the 10th Special Report to the U.S. Congress on Alcohol and Health , produced by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). The report highlights recent research advances on the causes, consequences, treatment, and prevention of alcohol addiction (alcoholism) and alcohol abuse. The 492-page...