COGA Suggests Genetic Loci For P3 Brain Wave Abnormality
...orjesz in 1985 demonstrated that P3 remains low in alcoholics who have been abstinent for as long as 10 years. In 1991, another research team related low P3 amplitude to number of alcoholic first-degree relatives rather than personal drinking history. Such indications that low P3 amplitudes predate heavy drinki...COGA Genome Scan Suggests Linkage On Chromosomes 1,2,4, And 7
...rst-degree relatives with alcohol dependence. Like alcoholics in the general U.S. population, the study group was predominantly Caucasian and evidenced considerable comorbidity with other psychiatric diagnoses. The researchers assessed participants according to DSM-III-R and Feighner diagnostic systems** ope...Alcoholics' Children: Living With A Stacked Biochemical Deck
Children of alcoholics have an altered brain chemistry that appears tomake them more likely to become alcoholics themselves, according to a recentstudy by Johns Hopkins scientists. Using a drug-based techn...UCSF Research Team Looking For Volunteers For Nationwide Study On Family Traits And Alcoholism
...olunteers who are heavy alcohol users orrecovering alcoholics and who also have a family member who will take part inthe study. All participants must be 18 years of age or older and free fromaddiction to other drugs, except nicotine. Study volunteers must take part in a telephone interview about use of alcoho......new light inthree key areas of this addiction: why alcoholics experience long-lastingfeelings of tension and distress; why some drinkers develop alcoholism in thefirst place; and why some tend to relapse, even after protracted abstinence. These studies of chemical imbalances prompted by heavy drinking could hel...Study confirms protein culprit in alcohol-induced liver disease
...eviously, higher levels of TNF-alpha were found in alcoholics with hepatitisand laboratory studies have shown that antibodies to TNF-alpha attenuatedalcohol-induced liver injury. But the cytokine's role in the disease remainedunclear. "This major increase in our understanding of mechanisms of liver inju...Just how serious a problem is alcoholism?
Some people believe that alcoholics are morally, mentally and physically weak. Others believe that alcoholics have a legitimate, science-based disease. Divided opinion belies a basic fact: the majority of alco...Smells may trigger alcohol craving, and relapse, among alcoholics
... may not seem too exciting to most people, but for alcoholics trying to remain abstinent from alcohol, it could ...lso funded this study, approximately 90 percent of alcoholics are likely to experience at least one relapse during the four-year period following treatment. Simi...How alcohol gives, and then takes away
... BDNF may have important implications for treating alcoholics going through withdrawal. Mental diseases, including addiction and alcohol dependence, may indeed be "all in your head." But not in the way you might think. Researchers have learned that alcohol may be particularly damaging to the brain's reward...Gene mutation may no longer protect certain populations from alcoholism
...n ofacetaldehyde to acetate, which basically makes alcoholics sick when they drink. McGue calls it a kindof "aversion therapy" that's used in combination with other types of treatment. The bad news is that people who naturally have this genetic mutation and nonetheless drink alcoholwill likely experience unpl...Playing the odds: Can you stop abusing alcohol at 10 years and be OK?
... found that no such "threshold" exists. Short-term alcoholics demonstrated the same brain damage as long-term al...ty's study compared the test results of recovering alcoholics who were recruited from drugrehabilitation centers in Oklahoma City with those of non-alcoholics. S...Nicotine may have another side effect: heavy drinking
...eases alcohol consumption. "We knew that many more alcoholics smoked than members of the general population," sa...l Alert reported that between 80 and 95 percent of alcoholics smoke tobacco,which is roughly three times higher than those among the general population (about 30 ...Searching for biochemical markers in children of alcoholics
...sk. Those considered most at risk are children of alcoholics (COAs). Not all COAs become alcoholics. Biochemi...isk of developing alcoholism, yet some children of alcoholics (COAs) develop the disease while others don't, even within the same environment. A study published ...The power of the mother-child bond
... has shown that elementary-school-aged children of alcoholics were more likely to report more negative experiences about alcohol than children from non-alcoholic homes," she said. "Some of the early learning about alcohol appears to be based on sensory experience and the context in which alcohol is experienced...Alcohol and thiamine deficiency together: a dangerous combination?
... is concerned that the standard practice of giving alcoholics thiamine injections, in order to counteract the pr.... We also need to seriously think about educating alcoholics with respect to their diet and nutrition." Gauvin had one final caution. "This study opens the door...Some alcoholics may self-medicate with carbohydrates between drinks
...eases serotonin levels, as do carbohydrates. Those alcoholics with high cravings for carbohydrates have a unique...perimental Research may have found a sub-group of alcoholics who self-medicate low levels of serotonin with carbohydrates when they're not drinking. "More and mo...Fine-tuning the search for biochemical characteristics of alcoholics
...s such as cigarette smoking. The vast majority of alcoholics smoke cigarettes. Some previous assessments of biological makers have attributed some things to alcoholism which were, in fact, related to cigarette smoking." This particular study did not find that cigarette smoking, age or body weight had a discer...Free radicals in alcoholic liver disease
...eneration of the liver characteristically seen in alcoholics has been ascribed to cellular damage mediated by free radicals. Here, Kono et al. identify the macrophage enzyme NADPH oxidase as the source of these troublesome compounds, and they confirm that free radicals are required in the pathogenesis of al...In addition to liver disease, alcoholics are at risk of other ailments, including fragile bones. Osteopenia in these individuals might be explained by a deficit in osteoblast-dependent bone deposition, an excess of osteoclast-dependent bone resorption, or both. Dai et al show here that th......st-mortem samples of superior frontal cortex of 10 alcoholics and 10 non-alcoholics, and measured by two differe... found to differ by 40 percent or more between the alcoholics and non-alcoholics. The genes that seemed to change were those related to the generation of white m...