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4.
Canadian journal provides look at the big picture By
Tom O'Connell The
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto publishes an excellent
Journal that provides thought-provoking articles on relevant developments in
research, education, and clinical care. Here are some excerpts for you to
think about: *
Youth gambling skyrockets...Between
five and eight percent of Canadian and U.S. adolescents have a serious
gambling problem, new studies suggest. This compares with rates ranging from
one to three percent among adults, according to researchers at Montreal's
McGill University and the University of Minnesota, who presented their
results at the American Psychological Association meeting in August. McGill
researchers found that 35 percent of adolescents gambled at least once a
week, and that the gamblers were far more likely to drink alcohol, smoke
cigarettes or consume drugs. *
Official call for heroin trial...Senior
officials in British Columbia are calling for an immediate expansion of
methadone programs and for a controlled heroin prescription trial, in the
wake of more than 200 heroin-related deaths in the first six months of
1998....The federal government would have to authorize any heroin
prescription trials. *
The Prozac versus placebo debate;
faith, not drugs, helps conquer depression, researchers say...Drs.
Irving Kirsch and Guy Sapirstein contend that 75 percent of the beneficial
effects of antidepressant medication can be ascribed to placebo effect--the
strong belief that drugs work--and only 25 percent to actual changes in
brain chemistry. Dr. Kirsch, of the University of Connecticut, and Dr.
Sapirstein of *
Impaired drivers sentenced to get
help...Starting this fall, convicted impaired drivers in Ontario are
being required to attend either an education or treatment program before
their drivers' licenses can be reinstated. *
Smoking linked to Alzheimer's...Smokers
are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's disease and dementia as
non-smokers, according to a Dutch study. Researchers examined 6,870 people
aged 55 and older in a Rotterdam suburb who initially did not have
dementia....During follow-up about two years later, 146 cases of dementia
were detected, of which 105 were Alzheimer's disease. Researchers found that
smokers tended to develop dementia earlier than nonsmokers, former smokers
were also at slightly higher risk than those who had never smoked, and men
had a greater risk than women. *
Additional fetal alcohol risks...Exposing
a fetus to alcohol may increase the likelihood that the baby will become
dependent on alcohol or other drugs as an adult, one of the first studies of
its kind suggests. Researchers found that fetal alcohol exposure increased
adult symptoms of drug, alcohol and tobacco use--even after controlling for
gender, environmental effects, genetic risk and other factors.
If
you'd like to chase additional information available from the Centre for
Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, try using www.camh.net. |
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