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Sex, drugs and diet top issues parents want doctors to discuss with kids

When parents bring their children in for routine check-ups many are hoping the doctors and nurse practitioners caring for them will do more than just check blood pressure, listen to their heart and provide any necessary vaccinations.

28 Jan 2008

Gender differences in liver cancer

A fundamental difference in the way males and females respond to chronic liver disease at the genetic level helps explain why men are more prone to liver cancer, according to MIT researchers.

16 Jan 2008

Overweight people may not know when they've had enough

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have found new clues to why some people overeat and gain weight while others don't.

10 Jan 2008

Scientists can predict psychotic illness in up to 80 percent of high-risk youth

Youth who are going to develop psychosis can be identified before their illness becomes full-blown 35 percent of the time if they meet widely accepted criteria for risk, but that figure rises to 65 to 80 percent if they have certain combinations of risk factors, the largest study of its kind has shown.

8 Jan 2008

Study looks at newly homeless youth and sexual behaviors

Newly homeless youth are likelier to engage in risky sexual behavior if they stay in nonfamily settings — such as friends' homes, abandoned buildings or the streets — because they lack supervision and social support, a new UCLA AIDS Institute study has found.

7 Jan 2008

Minorities less likely to receive pain-relieving opioid drugs in ER

Blacks and Hispanics who go to hospital emergency departments in pain are significantly less likely than whites to get pain-relieving opioid drugs, according to a new study funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

7 Jan 2008

Cocaine vaccine to cure addiction undergoes clinical trials

Clinical trials on a cocaine vaccine are currently being conducted by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.

2 Jan 2008

CDC study finds 5.5 percent increase in injury mortality from 1999 to 2004

Increases in deaths among 20-to-29 and 45-to-54 year olds contribute to first overall increase in years.

14 Dec 2007

Neurons in the frontal lobe may be responsible for rational decision-making

You study the menu at a restaurant and decide to order the steak rather than the salmon. But when the waiter tells you about the lobster special, you decide lobster trumps steak. Without reconsidering the salmon, you place your order - all because of a trait called "transitivity."

10 Dec 2007

Honey a cheaper and more effective treatment for children's coughs than cough medicine

Experts in the United States say when it comes to children's coughs, natural honey offers a cheaper and more effective alternative to expensive over-the-counter cough medicines.

5 Dec 2007

New non-addictive pain-killers

Two University of Adelaide pharmacologists working with one the world's leading neuroscientists have helped pave the way for the development of new pain-killing drugs that are not addictive.

20 Nov 2007

University of Illinois at Chicago receives $2.2 million grant to develop drugs to suppress cocaine cravings

The University of Illinois at Chicago College of Pharmacy has received a $2.2 million federal grant to develop therapeutics to suppress the cravings of cocaine addicts.

19 Nov 2007

Smoking cessation during pregnancy is focus of study

Despite warnings from experts and media campaigns marketing healthy living techniques, approximately one-third of women of childbearing age smoke cigarettes and 25-50 percent of women smoke during pregnancy.

13 Nov 2007

Genes play important role in risk for dependence on illicit and licit drugs

The genes that play a role in illegal drug abuse are not entirely the same as those involved in dependence on legal substances like alcohol and nicotine, and caffeine addiction appears to be genetically independent of all the others, according to a study led by Virginia Commonwealth University researchers.

6 Nov 2007

Educating teens about the dangers of tobacco use

"As a teen, no one ever told us that cigarettes would affect our health," says Jerry Berkowitz, a throat cancer survivor who started smoking at age 13. "Everyone smoked."

2 Nov 2007

Medicaid pays for one-third of drug abuse hospitalizations

Medicaid paid for more than one-third of the 1.3 million hospital stays related to prescription or illegal drug abuse in 2005, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

2 Nov 2007

Researchers discover drug-craving brain region in rats

Chilean researchers have identified a region of the brain - the insular cortex - that plays a role in drug craving in amphetamine-addicted rats, according to a report published in the 26 October issue of the journal Science, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the nonprofit science society.

25 Oct 2007

Most parents ignorant to teenager's substance use

New research results from the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) suggest that most parents are aware of and accurately evaluate the extent of their teenager's cigarette smoking, marijuana use, drinking and overall substance use.

24 Oct 2007

Insulin levels affect the brain's dopamine systems

Insulin, long known as an important regulator of blood glucose levels, now has a newly appreciated role in the brain.

18 Oct 2007

How does the opioid system work?

The opioid system controls pain, reward and addictive behaviors. Opioids exert their pharmacological actions through three opioid receptors, mu, delta and kappa whose genes have been cloned (Oprm, Oprd1 and Oprk1, respectively).

15 Oct 2007