www.alkoholpolitik.ch

Patients who receive a liver transplant due to alcoholic liver disease need to demonstrate periods of abstinence and often attend addiction treatment before transplantation. However, alcohol use disorders can recur, as can other diseases requiring transplantation, and thus alcohol use after liver transplantation is not uncommon. A new study published in the American Journal of Transplantation reveals that those at highest risk to drink alcohol post transplant, especially in patterns that will damage their health, can be identified potentially preventing relapse. (Source: Medical News Today, 8/20/10)

If actress/starlet/addict Lindsay Lohan accomplishes nothing else in this life — and this seems increasingly probable — we’ll at least be able to say that she has sparked a conversation about the relative merits of drug treatment versus incarceration.
As you may know, Lohan used up even the long rope afforded repeat offenders in Hollywood and was sent to jail in July for violating the terms of her probation stemming from a drunk-driving conviction. Lohan’s teary courtroom appearances have elicited some sympathy. …(Source: Join Together, 8/16/10)

The greatest and most costly failure of the medical profession and public health community is their failure to explain to the American people that addiction to alcohol and other drugs is a disease.
Against the scientific knowledge we now have, physicians’ refusal to give alcohol- and other drug-addicted patients the same medical care and attention they provide individuals with other chronic illnesses like hypertension and diabetes is inconsistent with their Hippocratic oath to “prescribe regimen for the good of my patients…and never to do harm to anyone.” The harm due to this long term failure of the medical profession and public health community is measured in untold lives lost and ruined and the incalculable human misery of families, friends and colleagues of alcoholics and drug addicts. (Source: National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, 7/19/10)

Recovering addicts who failed to take steps to deal with the stress in their lives were more susceptible to craving  — a major predictor of relapse — according to researchers at Penn State University. Sify News reported June 24 that researchers analyzed recovery diaries kept by college students in recovery and found that those who avoided problems in their lives rather than dealing with them were more likely to experience craving when they experienced stress or negative moods. (Source: Join Together, 6/25/10)

A new drink debuting in France claims to reduce drunkenness and lessen hangovers but has health experts wary, Fox News reported June 16. The drink, Outox, purports to “greatly speed up” the breakdown of alcohol in the blood, which the company says has been medically tested, though this has not been independently verified. “If someone invented a product capable of really lowering the level of alcohol in the blood, he would deserve a Nobel prize,” said Alain Rigaud, president of the French anti-alcoholism group Association Nationale de Prevention en Alcoologie et Addictologie (ANPAA). (Source: Join Together, 6/24/10)

“More and more violent crimes are occurring in America’s hospitals, clinics and other health care facilities, according to a new alert issued by the Joint Commission, an independent health care oversight group,” USA Today reports. “Since 2004, there have been ‘significant increases in reports of assault, rape and homicide, with the greatest number of reports in the last three years,’ the group said in its ‘Sentinel Event Alert’ released last week, the latest in a series of alerts on serious adverse events occurring in health care settings.” Russell L. Colling, a health care consultant who advised the Joint Commission, “cited a number of reasons for the increase in violent outbreaks in health care settings, including an increase in drug and alcohol abuse and a lack of adequate care for psychiatric patients.” (Source: Medical News Today, 6/15/10)

Combining medications and behavioral interventions for treating alcohol-dependent patients reduces social costs of health care, arrests and motor vehicle accidents, according to a new study by researchers at RTI International, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Pennsylvania and Yale University.
The study, published in the May issue of Medical Care, looked at the economic impact of combined alcohol dependency treatments, including the treatment costs and the economic costs of other health care use, arrests and motor vehicle accidents. Source: Medical News Today, 6/3/10)

New Report Provides Startling Look At Substance Abuse On An Average Day In The Life Of American Adolescents
On an average day, 508,000 adolescents aged 12-17 in the United States drink alcohol; 641,000 use illicit drugs; and more than 1 million smoke cigarettes, according to a national survey sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). (Source: Medical News Today, 6/3/10)

Researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital have produced the first evidence that the opioid blocker extended-release injectable naltrexone (XR-NTX) is able to reduce the brain’s response to cues that may cause alcoholics to relapse.
In data presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, Scott Lukas, PhD, director of the Neuroimaging Center at McLean, located in Belmont, Mass., said the findings help in the understanding of how XR-NTX works in reducing the craving for alcohol and may potentially help predict which people will respond best to the drug. (Source: Medical News Today, 5/27/10)

Fewer children are abusing booze but deaths are rising as north-south drinks divide opens in England.
Deaths from alcohol in England climbed to 6,769 in 2008, liver disease was the most common cause. Fatalities have risen by 24% since 2001. The figures, revealing a surge in prescriptions for medicines to treat alcoholism and a slight decrease in overall consumption, suggest that awareness of the health dangers and, possibly, the recession may be having some impact.
A cultural divide in drinking habits appears to be opening up between southern and northern England, with far less being drunk in London than elsewhere in the country. If overall consumption is falling, death rates – which chiefly reflect long term physical damage – will take some time to reflect any change. (Source: Harvard World Health News, 5/27/10) guardian.co.uk, 5/26/10