A new clinical trial that will launch in September is an example of an innovative tool that can help educate and inform women of the risks of drinking during pregnancy. To find out more about this project and how it will impact women’s health, we caught up with Principal Investigator and ARG Scientist Madhabika Nayak. Tell me about your project and how it will support women’s health. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) continues to be a problem despite all the preventative measures … [Read more...]
The Community
Study Provides No-Cost Alcohol Treatment
For over 20 years Senior Scientist Douglas Polcin, EdD, has been studying addiction and treatment options, including recovery housing. His latest project, one that focuses on outpatient treatment for women with alcohol problems, is designed to assess the efficacy of intensive motivational interviewing (IMI). Over the next two years, the study will recruit 220 adult women, each randomized to one of two treatment types with services provided by licensed therapists and practitioners at New Leaf … [Read more...]
Men’s Hazardous Drinking Risks
A new study found that men who have sex with men (MSM)—defined as gay and bisexually identified men as well as heterosexually identified men who had same-sex partners--reported equal or lower levels of hazardous drinking than exclusively heterosexual men. This finding dispels the popular assumption that men who have sex with men are more likely to consume alcohol above recommended amounts. The study results also suggest that the protective effect is enhanced for some racial/ethnic groups. Black … [Read more...]
Cannabis & Alcohol Shouldn’t Be Mixed
Even though cannabis is the most commonly used drug by people who drink alcohol, no study has looked at the implications of drinking and smoking cannabis at the same time. ARG Associate Scientist Meenakshi Sabina Subbaraman and Senior Scientist William C. Kerr have done just that - to investigate how combining the two substances affects adult drinkers compared to people who use both separately. Their findings show that simultaneous users had double the odds of drunk driving, social … [Read more...]
Is a Drink a Day Good for You?
There's been a lot of talk recently - both in the news and social media - that for people between the ages of 40 and 50 years old, having one drink a day is good for your health. The buzz started with a commentary by Professor Rubin, published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, who suggested that "physicians should counsel lifelong non-drinkers at about 40 to 50 years of age to relax and take a drink a day." However, ARG Senior Scientists Thomas K. … [Read more...]
How big is your drink?
Most people know that drink sizes differ depending on where you purchase your drink and that they're not very consistent, in particular when you compare with how much you pour when at home. Since the size of drink determines how much alcohol you're consuming, knowing the amount of alcohol in a "standard drink", or what the British call a "unit of alcohol", as well as how to pour that amount of your usual beverage, is critical when trying to stay healthy and making sure you're not exceeding the … [Read more...]
How does your drinking measure up?
One way to look at your drinking habits is to compare your own consumption level to how much the rest of the nation is drinking. ARG Senior Scientist, Thomas K. Greenfield and Scientist, Yu Ye, took data from the 2010 National Alcohol Survey (NAS) consisting of 7,969 individuals residing in 50 states and Washington DC, and looked at the number of drinks both women and men said they consumed per week on average during the last 12 months. Take a minute to add up how much you usually drink in a … [Read more...]
What is Recovery?
The term ‘recovery’ is widely used in the research literature. Recovery is a goal of alcohol treatment, and recovery-oriented systems of care are being developed to support that goal. Alcoholics who no longer drink and are trying to pursue an improved way of living/being say that they are ‘in recovery.’ Yet for all its use, and seeming centrality, there is no agreed upon definition of the term within the alcohol literature. Lacking a definition, recovery usually is equated with abstinence or … [Read more...]
Women at a Greater Risk for Injury than Men
A new study of emergency department patients in 18 countries led by ARG Senior Scientist, Cheryl Cherpitel, made available online by the scientific journal Addiction, shows that the risk of injury caused by acute alcohol consumption is higher for women compared with men. While the risk of injury is similar for both men and women up to three ‘standard’ drinks (containing 16 ml or 12.8 g of pure ethanol), the risk then increases more rapidly for women, becoming twice the risk to men around 15 … [Read more...]
LA project seeks to reduce HIV risk
A new ARG study will look at whether a Motivational Interviewing Case Management (MICM) intervention will improve outcomes for people who are on probation or parole, at risk for HIV and have recently entered a Sober Living House. The MICM will help respondents access needed services, adapt to their new living environment, find and maintain work, address HIV risk and treatment, and manage setbacks. With a high risk for HIV infection among criminal justice offenders, there is a strong need for … [Read more...]