Addiction News and Research

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They fell in love helping drug users. But fear kept him from helping himself.

She was in medical school. He was just out of prison.

27 Feb 2020

New strategies to incorporate social determinants of health into patient records

Incorporating social determinants of health into a patient's health records is an area of significant interest for health systems, but many are finding the integration to be challenging.

26 Feb 2020

Trusting injection drug users with IV antibiotics at home: It can work

Two mornings a week, Arthur Jackson clears space on half of his cream-colored sofa. He sets out a few rolls of tape and some gauze, then waits for a knock on his front door.

26 Feb 2020

As the coronavirus spreads, Americans lose ground against other health threats

Antibiotics revolutionized the care of infections. Vaccines turned deadly childhood diseases into distant memories. Americans lived longer, healthier lives than their parents.

26 Feb 2020

Medication treatments for OUD led to 80% lower risk of death from opioid overdose

Patients with opioid use disorder receiving treatment with opioid agonists (medications such as methadone or buprenorphine) had an 80 percent lower risk of dying from an opioid overdose compared to patients in treatment without the use of medications.

25 Feb 2020

Survival chances increase with further treatment for opioid use disorder after detox

A new study shows that people with opioid use disorder who enter inpatient medically managed withdrawal treatment (detox) do not usually receive further treatment, including medication for opioid use disorder or additional inpatient treatment.

25 Feb 2020

Opioid prescription for chronic non-cancer pain increased in the last two-and-a-half decades

The number of people with chronic non-cancer pain prescribed an opioid medicine worldwide increased in the last two-and-a-half decades.

25 Feb 2020

Study finds higher risk of poisoning at the beginning and after end of methadone treatment

A new study, led by RCSI researchers, has found that patients receiving methadone treatment are most at risk of overdosing in the month following the end of methadone treatment and during the first four weeks of treatment.

20 Feb 2020

Proactive outreach can be an effective way to improve long-term opioid use disorder care

Proactive outreach, including knocking on the doors of individuals who recently overdosed on opioids, can be an effective way to engage more people who have opioid use disorder with long-term care, according to researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

20 Feb 2020

Levitating human blood may lead to faster, more reliable disease detection

New research from the UBC's Okanagan campus, Harvard Medical School and Michigan State University suggests that levitating human plasma may lead to faster, more reliable, portable and simpler disease detection.

20 Feb 2020

Scalpels out: Democrats make slashing attacks on health care plans

Top contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination torched one another's proposals to reform the health care system Wednesday, as the contest to unify behind a single candidate to defeat President Donald Trump took a bitterly divisive turn.

20 Feb 2020

Newsom: To fix homelessness, California must fix mental health

Gov. Gavin Newsom made a bold move Wednesday. In his second State of the State address, an annual speech that usually focuses on political wins or the state's booming economy, Newsom dedicated 35 of 42 minutes to the urgent but unsexy issue of homelessness.

19 Feb 2020

Fighting against treatment-resistant opioid use disorder

Similar to treatment resistant depression, there is a subpopulation of those addicted to opioids who do not respond to standard opioid use disorder (OUD) treatments.

19 Feb 2020

Survey: Majority of Americans strongly support organ and tissue donation for research

A strong majority of Americans agree that organ and tissue donation for research contributes to health and medical breakthroughs and acknowledge significant shortfalls for donation.

18 Feb 2020

VTC scientists study new approach to help people with alcohol use disorder

People with alcohol use disorder know that when it comes to immediate satisfaction, nothing works quicker than liquor.

18 Feb 2020

Health officials may be underestimating the prevalence of teen e-cigarette use

Juul, the popular e-cigarette brand that is being sued for fueling the youth e-cigarette epidemic, may have influenced high school students' perception of vaping such that some Juul users do not consider themselves e-cigarette users, a Rutgers-led study finds.

13 Feb 2020

No quick fix: Missouri finds managing pain without opioids isn’t fast or easy

Missouri began offering chiropractic care, acupuncture, physical therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy for Medicaid patients in April, the latest state to try an alternative to opioids for those battling chronic pain.

13 Feb 2020

Common human gene variant linked to THC reward in adolescent females

A common variation in a human gene that affects the brain's reward processing circuit increases vulnerability to the rewarding effects of the main psychoactive ingredient of cannabis in adolescent females, but not males, according to preclinical research by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators.

12 Feb 2020

Conservative Indiana adopted needle exchanges but still faces local resistance

Back when Cody Gabbard was shooting heroin, his only significant human contact was with others in the throes of addiction, who only cared to see him when he had drugs.

12 Feb 2020

Heroin use increasing among American adults

Earlier studies have shown a startling sevenfold increase in illnesses and deaths directly traceable to heroin use in the USA over less than 20 years. Along with this epidemic, HIV and hepatitis infections acquired by injections of drugs have also broken out in large clusters in many places. Yet, the extent of heroin use itself has been neglected. The current study looked at this overlooked area of research.

11 Feb 2020