A new study has suggested that drinking alcohol may lower the chances of developing rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and reduce its severity (Source: Nursing in Practice)MedWorm Message: Register for MedMatcha, MedWorm's medical advertising network, and receive $5 free advertising.

The present study shows that the paradigm relative to Black Sheep Effect (BSE) may be used to reveal normative stakes whose existence is not clearly identified. To this end, our study focuses on alcohol drinking practices among students, specifically with regard to drinking contexts (solitary vs. group). Our hypothesis was that the drinking norms are determined by their context (i.e. social vs. solitary drinking). More specifically, we suggested that social drinking is viewed by students as pro-normative, while solitary drinking is viewed as anti-normative. The results confirmed our hypotheses and enable us to consider that the BSE paradigm has the potential to reveal normative stakes. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. (Source: European Journal of Social Psychology)

The state of Washington plans to impose tough new rules on doctors who want to prescribe opiate painkillers to patients, including mandatory third-party evaluation of patients who request higher doses of the drug but don’t show signs of improvement. (Source: Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs News)

The state of Washington plans to impose tough new rules on doctors who want to prescribe opiate painkillers to patients, including mandatory third-party evaluation of patients who request higher doses of the drug but don’t show signs of improvement. (Source: Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs News)

About 15 percent of people seeking recovery from alcoholism turn to clergy members for support, a University of Michigan study finds. (Source: Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs News)

About 15 percent of people seeking recovery from alcoholism turn to clergy members for support, a University of Michigan study finds. (Source: Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs News)

Republican candidates for Congress are slinging accusations of hypocrisy over marijuana use and policy, including the spectacle of a candidate who favors legalization defending a YouTube video focused on his opponent’s arrest a decade earlier for marijuana possession. (Source: Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs News)

Republican candidates for Congress are slinging accusations of hypocrisy over marijuana use and policy, including the spectacle of a candidate who favors legalization defending a YouTube video focused on his opponent’s arrest a decade earlier for marijuana possession. (Source: Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs News)

Smoking causes dangerous changes in literally hundreds of genes in the body, including those related to tumor growth, inflammatory disease and immune-system suppression, according to researchers from the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research. (Source: Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs News)MedWorm Message: Register for MedMatcha, MedWorm's medical advertising network, and receive $5 free advertising.

Smoking causes dangerous changes in literally hundreds of genes in the body, including those related to tumor growth, inflammatory disease and immune-system suppression, according to researchers from the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research. (Source: Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs News)MedWorm Message: Register for MedMatcha, MedWorm's medical advertising network, and receive $5 free advertising.

CONCLUSION:: Results indicate that functional polymorphisms in folate-related genes increase the risk of having a fetus with CHD when maternal lifestyle factors that alter folate metabolism are present. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE:: II. PMID: 20664391 [PubMed - in process] (Source: Obstetrics and Gynecology)

Research suggests that childbearing does not necessarily cause psychological distress among teenagers. Dr. Stefanie Mollborn of the University of Colorado and her team investigated stress and depression using a large group of teenage girls and adult women. In the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, they explain that teenage mothers’ high depression rates have received “considerable research attention” in small studies, but a larger study of adolescent childbearing and depression was needed. So they used figures from two large long-term surveys, the U.S. National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort. The participants completed questionnaires to measure depression, although the term “depression” was a...

Conclusion The study showed an association between the strength of social relationships and lower mortality rates. However, as the researchers highlighted, many different measures of the strength of social interactions are used, and this study does not classify what constitutes a healthy social life. Owing to the high variability of the studies included in this meta-analysis, the researchers looked at social relationships in very broad terms. There are some limitations to this research, some of which the authors highlight: Behavioural risk factors for disease, such as smoking and drinking alcohol, were adjusted for in some but not all of the studies included in this meta-analysis. Some of the effect on mortality may, therefore, be due to these and other factors that were not adjusted fo...

New medical assessments for nurses with a caution or conviction for an alcohol or drug related offence must help people to address any underlying health conditions, a union has warned. (Source: Nursing Times Breaking News)

New medical assessments for nurses with a caution or conviction for an alcohol or drug related offence must help people to address any underlying health conditions, a union has warned. (Source: Nursing Times Breaking News)

Conclusion The majority of factors associated with intimate partner violence related to the male partner; in particular his childhood experiences of violence in his own family. Long-term violence prevention programmes should target boys growing up in families with domestic violence. (Source: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health)MedWorm Message: Register for MedMatcha, MedWorm's medical advertising network, and receive $5 free advertising.

SynlettDOI: 10.1055/s-0030-1258509© Georg Thieme Verlag Stuttgart ˙ New YorkGet connected:Table of contents  |  FREE: Full text (Source: Synlett)

Authors: Manev H, Dzitoyeva S Drosophila melanogaster, the "fruit fly," is being increasingly used as an experimental model in neurosciences, including neuropharmacology. The advantages of Drosophila over typical mammalian models in neuropharmacology include better access to genetic manipulation and the availability of almost unlimited numbers of experimental subjects at relatively low cost and with minimal regulatory restrictions. Nevertheless, one should remain cognizant of the substantial differences between insects and mammals. Insects, including Drosophila, utilize gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) as a neurotransmitter and express both ionotropic GABA receptors and metabotropic GABA-B receptors. Before cloning of the Drosophila GABA-B receptors (subunits 1-3), it had been assumed th...

Authors: Vlachou S, Markou A gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is the predominant inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain which acts through different receptor subtypes. Metabotropic GABA(B) receptors are widely distributed throughout the brain. Alterations in GABA signaling through pharmacological activation or deactivation of the GABA(B) receptor regulate behavior and brain reward processes. GABA(B) receptor agonists and, most recently, positive modulators have been found to inhibit the reinforcing effects of drugs of abuse, such as cocaine, amphetamine, nicotine, ethanol, and opiates. This converging evidence of the effects of GABA(B) compounds on the reinforcing properties of addictive drugs is based on behavioral studies that used a variety of procedures with relevance to reward pro...

Authors: Froestl W This chapter presents new clinical applications of the prototypic GABA(B) receptor agonist baclofen for the treatment of addiction by drugs of abuse, such as alcohol, cocaine, nicotine, morphine, and heroin, a novel baclofen prodrug Arbaclofen placarbil, the GABA(B) receptor agonist AZD3355 (Lesogabaran) currently in Phase 2 clinical trials for the treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease, and four positive allosteric modulators of GABA(B) receptors (CGP7930, GS39783, NVP-BHF177, and BHFF), which have less propensity for the development of tolerance due to receptor desensitization than classical GABA(B) receptor agonists. All four compounds showed anxiolytic affects. In the presence of positive allosteric modulators the "classical" GABA(B) receptor antagonists CG...