News by Subject Social & Behavior

Lonely, older adults are nearly twice as likely to use opioids to ease pain and two-and-a-half times more likely to use sedatives and anti-anxiety medications, putting themselves at risk for drug dependency, impaired attention, falls and other accidents, and further cognitive impairment, according to a study by researchers at UC San Francisco.

Wearable devices can detect people's stress, according to new Washington State University research, opening potential new interventions for people with addictions. In a paper in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, a WSU research team found that wearable wristbands measure physiological responses to stress in real-time and real-world situations, providing a potential method to help people avoid slipping back into old behaviors.

Four percent of newly diagnosed cancer cases in 2020 may by associated with drinking alcohol, according to a global study published in The Lancet Oncology, leading its authors to call for greater public awareness of the link between alcohol and cancers and increased government interventions to reduce alcohol consumption in worst-affected regions.

Substance abuse has long been viewed as the top factor in parents neglecting children. But a new study has found that presence of clinical depression and social supports, when compared with substance use, are also key in predicting neglect; should be part of social services, researcher argues.

Wine grapes are particularly finicky when it comes to their environment. For instance, heatwaves and droughts lead to earlier berry ripening and lackluster wine. And these types of episodes are expected to intensify as Earth's climate changes. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry have tweaked growing conditions for Cabernet Sauvignon grapes to slow down their ripening, which increased the levels of compounds associated with wine's characteristic floral and fruity notes.

Adolescent marijuana use and binge drinking did not significantly change during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite record decreases in the substances' perceived availability, according to a survey of 12th graders in the United States. The study's findings, which appeared on June 24, 2021, in Drug and Alcohol Dependence, challenge the idea that reducing adolescent use of drugs can be achieved solely by limiting their supply.

Black patients with cirrhosis - late-stage liver disease - are about 25% more likely to die compared to non-Hispanic white patients and four times less likely to receive a liver transplant, reports a new study. Estimates of racial disparity in cirrhosis have been limited by a lack of large-scale longitudinal data. The paper is one of the first to link all seven large liver centers in Chicago with the death registry and transplant registry to examine racial disparities in cirrhosis.

Ontario students are more likely to get behind the wheel of a vehicle after smoking cannabis than drinking alcohol, a new study from researchers at the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Medicine has revealed.

A UCLA clinical trial has shown encouraging results in helping daily smokers who are also heavy drinkers quit smoking and reduce their alcohol intake.