Epidemiology and Prevention of Substance Use Disorders in the Military.
Epidemiology and prevention of substance use disorders in the military.
Filed under: Addiction Rehab
Mil Med. 2012 Aug; 177(8 Suppl): 21-8
Sirratt D, Ozanian A, Traenkner B
U.S. military service members have been in active combat for more than 10 years. Research reveals that combat exposure increases the risk of substance use disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression, and tobacco use. The Services and the field of addiction medicine are working hard to find a common definition for prescription drug misuse, which is a growing concern in both the general U.S. population and the force. Meanwhile, leaders at all levels of Department of Defense are diligently working to address barriers to care, particularly stigma related to substance abuse care, by seeking a balance between improving service member privacy in order to encourage self-referral for medical care and a commander’s need to know the status of the unit and its combat readiness. The treatment and management of substance abuse disorders are a complex force health issue that requires the use of evidence-based medical interventions and policies that are consistent with them.
HubMed – addiction
Genome-Wide Association Study of d-Amphetamine Response in Healthy Volunteers Identifies Putative Associations, Including Cadherin 13 (CDH13).
Filed under: Addiction Rehab
PLoS One. 2012; 7(8): e42646
Hart AB, Engelhardt BE, Wardle MC, Sokoloff G, Stephens M, de Wit H, Palmer AA
Both the subjective response to d-amphetamine and the risk for amphetamine addiction are known to be heritable traits. Because subjective responses to drugs may predict drug addiction, identifying alleles that influence acute response may also provide insight into the genetic risk factors for drug abuse. We performed a Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS) for the subjective responses to amphetamine in 381 non-drug abusing healthy volunteers. Responses to amphetamine were measured using a double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subjects design. We used sparse factor analysis to reduce the dimensionality of the data to ten factors. We identified several putative associations; the strongest was between a positive subjective drug-response factor and a SNP (rs3784943) in the 8(th) intron of cadherin 13 (CDH13; P?=?4.58×10(-8)), a gene previously associated with a number of psychiatric traits including methamphetamine dependence. Additionally, we observed a putative association between a factor representing the degree of positive affect at baseline and a SNP (rs472402) in the 1(st) intron of steroid-5-alpha-reductase-?-polypeptide-1 (SRD5A1; P?=?2.53×10(-7)), a gene whose protein product catalyzes the rate-limiting step in synthesis of the neurosteroid allopregnanolone. This SNP belongs to an LD-block that has been previously associated with the expression of SRD5A1 and differences in SRD5A1 enzymatic activity. The purpose of this study was to begin to explore the genetic basis of subjective responses to stimulant drugs using a GWAS approach in a modestly sized sample. Our approach provides a case study for analysis of high-dimensional intermediate pharmacogenomic phenotypes, which may be more tractable than clinical diagnoses.
HubMed – addiction
Cognitive dysfunction and anxious-impulsive personality traits are endophenotypes for drug dependence.
Filed under: Addiction Rehab
Am J Psychiatry. 2012 Sep 1; 169(9): 926-36
Ersche KD, Turton AJ, Chamberlain SR, Müller U, Bullmore ET, Robbins TW
OBJECTIVE Not everyone who takes drugs becomes addicted, but the likelihood of developing drug addiction is greater in people with a family history of drug or alcohol dependence. Relatively little is known about how genetic risk mediates the development of drug dependence. By comparing the phenotypic profile of individuals with and without a family history of addiction, the authors sought to clarify the extent to which cognitive dysfunction and personality traits are shared by family members-and therefore likely to have predated drug dependence-and which aspects are specific to drug-dependent individuals. METHOD The authors assessed cognitive function and personality traits associated with drug dependence in stimulant-dependent individuals (N=50), their biological siblings without a history of drug dependence (N=50), and unrelated healthy volunteers (N=50). RESULTS Cognitive function was significantly impaired in the stimulant-dependent individuals across a range of domains. Deficits in executive function and response control were identified in both the stimulant-dependent individuals and in their non-drug-dependent siblings. Drug-dependent individuals and their siblings also exhibited elevated anxious-impulsive personality traits relative to healthy comparison volunteers. CONCLUSIONS Deficits in executive function and response regulation as well as anxious-impulsive personality traits may represent endophenotypes associated with the risk of developing cocaine or amphetamine dependence. The identification of addiction endophenotypes may be useful in facilitating the rational development of therapeutic and preventive strategies.
HubMed – addiction
[Prevalence of tobacco smoking in addiction medicine specialists in Moscow.]
Filed under: Addiction Rehab
Zh Nevrol Psikhiatr Im S S Korsakova. 2012; 112(5 Vol.2 Addictive disorders): 73-76
Kutushev OT, Lykov VI
According to the questionnaire results, high smoking rates among medical doctors working in Moscow drug-addiction out-patient clinics were identified: 78% of males and 42% of females smoke or used to smoke. The long duration and high intensity of smoking were noted. Interestingly, a large number of smoking doctors (36% of men and 43% of women) do not want to quit smoking. Smoking addiction medicine specialists pay far less attention to prevention and treatment of tobacco dependence in their patients.
HubMed – addiction
Betty Ford Center: Addiction the Disease – Part 7 – The characteristics of relapse and the stigma of addiction are discussed by Dr. Harry Haroutunian, Physician Director of Betty Ford Center.
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