From Newswise – Addiction – Page 19

Shed those pounds while digesting all these weight-loss research headlines from the Weight Loss channel

A recent study in JAMA Pediatrics reveals an increasing trend in metabolic and bariatric surgeries among children. Media are currently working on stories based on this growing trend.

As more families consider bariatric surgery a viable option to treat their child’s obesity, it is important to stay up-to-date on the latest research on weight loss. You can find the latest research on bariatric surgery and other weight loss options in the Weight Loss channel on Newswise, where journalists can find story ideas on this trending topic.

Here are some of the latest headlines in the Weight Loss channel from our members:

How to Decide About Treatment for Teens with Excess Weight?
Thomas Jefferson University

New research shows an uptick in weight loss surgery among youth in US
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

Obesity drugs help patients lose weight regained years after bariatric surgery
UT Southwestern Medical Center

Wayne State to develop application to conduct automated motivational interviewing counseling focused on weight loss
Wayne State University Division of Research

New Penn Medicine Study Uncovers Key Details of Fat Cells, Advancing Potential Treatments for Obesity, Diabetes
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Women with breast cancer shed pounds thanks to telephone-based weight loss program, clinical trial finds
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Does body contouring increase long-term weight loss after bariatric surgery? New findings
Wolters Kluwer Health: Lippincott

Weight Loss Before Afib Ablation Procedure Results in Improved Outcomes Among Obese Patients
University of Miami Health System, Miller School of Medicine

Fitterfly Diabetes Digital Therapeutics Program Improves Blood Sugar Levels and Promotes Weight Loss in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes
JMIR Publications

Behavior Patterns of People Who Achieve Clinically Significant Weight Loss
Ohio State University

New study finds unintentional weight loss often goes unrecognized by primary care physicians
University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center

Obesity treatment could offer dramatic weight loss without surgery or nausea
American Chemical Society (ACS)

Reentry Services May Help Stabilize Substance Use Risks After Mass Prison Release

FIRS Calls for Action to Prevent Young People from Taking Up Smoking

Newswise — On World No Tobacco Day, May 31, 2023, the Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS), of which The American Thoracic Society is a founding member, is encouraging policy makers to take steps to prevent young people from taking up smoking.

Despite initiatives around the world to reduce the use of tobacco products amongst young people, such as restrictions in marketing and raising the minimum age of sale to 18 years old, smoking is still prevalent amongst those aged 18 and under:

The average age to start smoking is 16 years of age. [1]
Across EU countries, more than one in six (18 percent) 15-year-olds reported having smoked cigarettes at least once in the past month in 2018. [2]
Data from the US Department of Health suggest that 90 percent of smokers begin smoking before 18 years of age. [3]
The use of electronic nicotine delivery systems has dramatically increased over the past 10 years, particularly among young people. [4]

The brains of children and adolescents are uniquely vulnerable to the effects of nicotine and nicotine addiction. The later an individual begins smoking, the less likely they are to smoke later in life. Smokers are much more likely than non-smokers to develop lung cancer, COPD and other respiratory diseases, it is therefore crucial that we prevent tobacco use in young people to protect them from lifelong addiction and its extensive adverse health effects.

To protect young people from the dangers of tobacco use, FIRS urges policy makers to adopt Tobacco 21 (T21) policies which raise the minimum age for the sale of tobacco products to 21 years.

Many countries have already begun to raise the minimum age of sale of tobacco products beyond the 18 years specified by the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC):

The U.S. introduced T21 law first at regional and state level across 19 states from 2003 to 2019, which then became national legislation in 2019. [5]
Singapore phased in T21 law, first increasing the age of sale to 20 years in 2020 and then 21 years in 2021. [6]
Sri Lanka and Kuwait have raised the age of sale of tobacco products to 21 years. [7, 8]
In December 2021, New Zealand introduced a Smokefree 2025 Action Plan to be smoke free by 2025 by banning the sale of tobacco products to anyone born after 2009. [9]

Studies conducted in the United States suggest that T21 policies have been effective:

In Needham, Massachusetts, a greater reduction in past 30-day smoking among adolescents was recorded compared with adolescents in surrounding areas following the implementation of T21 law [10]
Smoking rates among 18 to 20-year-olds in U.S. metropolitan areas showed a 1.2 percent reduction post-introduction of T21 laws. [11]
Survey data from Cleveland, Ohio reported a reduction in tobacco use among high-school children once T21 legislation was introduced [12]
After implementation of T21 law in California in 2016, a purchase survey demonstrated a reduction in tobacco products sales among 15 to 16-year-olds. [13]

Modelling suggests that increasing the legal age of tobacco products to 21 years will reduce tobacco initiation, particularly in adolescents aged 15–17 years, resulting in fewer tobacco attributable deaths. [14]

It is estimated that the global yearly death toll as a result of tobacco use is currently 7 million (including exposure to second hand smoke) [15]. As countries move towards ending the use of tobacco products, FIRS urges policy makers to adopt Tobacco 21 policies and reduce the harmful impacts of tobacco products on the global population.

The ATS continues to advocate for policy to protect young people from exposure to tobacco and e-cigarettes. In 2017, the Society released “ATS in Action: Tobacco and Kids.” This compelling PSA highlighted the tactics used by tobacco companies to lure youth.

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@FIRS_LungsFirst calls for action to prevent young people from taking up #smoking. @atsadvocacy

About the Forum of International Respiratory Societies

The Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS) is an organisation comprised of the world’s leading international respiratory societies working together to improve lung health globally. The goal of FIRS is to unify and enhance efforts to improve lung health through the combined work of its more than 70,000 members globally.

FIRS comprises the American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST), American Thoracic Society (ATS), the Asian Pacific Society of Respirology (APSR), Asociación Latino Americana De Tórax (ALAT), European Respiratory Society (ERS), International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases (The Union), Pan African Thoracic Society (PATS), the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA), and the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD).

Genetic Risk Information May Help People Avoid Alcohol Addiction

Newswise — Today’s substance use prevention efforts ignore individual genetic risk, but Rutgers research suggests DNA test results may eventually enhance prevention and treatment and improve outcomes.

Investigators recruited 325 college students, provided them with varying levels of information about alcohol use disorder and how genetics affect addiction risk and asked them how they would react to learning they had high, medium and low genetic tendencies toward alcoholism.

The results provided two significant supports for eventually using real genetic risk scores in actual addiction prevention efforts. First, participants understood what those scores indicated; they recognized that higher genetic risk scores meant a higher likelihood of developing alcohol problems. Second, most participants said they would drink less and take other steps to prevent addiction if actual scores showed high risk.

“There are a lot of steps between the discovery of addiction-related genes and the effective use of genetic information in prevention and treatment,” said Danielle Dick, director of the Rutgers Addiction Research Center and senior author of the study published in the American Journal of Medical Genetics. “This trial paves the way for studies using real genetic data and for integrating genetic information into prevention and intervention efforts.”

Adoption and twin studies indicate addiction risk is roughly half genetic, Dick said, but there’s no single addiction gene that’s either present or absent. Instead, there are thousands of interacting genes, so each person’s genetic risk falls somewhere on a continuum.

Risk isn’t distributed evenly along that continuum: It’s distributed in a bell curve. A small number of people have high or low genetic risk (at the tail ends of the curve), but most people fall in the middle of the curve, she said. Knowing one’s level of genetic risk can help people make the best choices for their health and well-being. Individuals at higher genetic risk are more likely to develop problems with alcohol use, so they can take precautionary steps with their substance use.

Despite the relative complexity of the risk calculation, study participants formed relatively accurate impressions of the risk for addiction associated with various genetic results. Future research will investigate whether other populations understand risk scores as well as the college students in this trial.

Another important finding was that individuals reported they would experience moderate distress if they learned they were at high genetic risk for addiction. This suggests that providers should be mindful of how to return high-risk genetic results and consider accompanying this information with counseling. Encouragingly, as individuals received increasing levels of genetic risk, they also reported greater intentions to seek additional information, such as talking with a healthcare provider and engaging in harm reduction practices.

“Overall, the results strongly encourage the notion that real genetic risk scores may prove helpful in preventing and treating alcohol addiction,” Dick said. “Comprehension of test results was high. Psychological distress remained at manageable levels. The vast majority of individuals indicated that they’d take action to reduce their risk if they learned they were at elevated genetic risk, and, fortunately, there was no indication that people would interpret low-risk scores as an invitation to take fewer precautions.”

Dick emphasized we still know little about how real-world genetic information will affect real-world behavior. Most known addiction genes were discovered in the past few years, and many more remain to be discovered. No commercial genetic testing service provides information about addiction risk, so very few people have ever received genuine information about their genetic tendency toward addiction. What’s more, stated intentions often differ from subsequent actions.

“There was a hope that compelling information about elevated genetic risk would get people to change behavior, but we haven’t seen that happen for other aspects of health,” Dick said. “Initial studies suggest that receiving genetic feedback for heart disease, lung cancer, and diabetes does not get people to change their behavior. Getting people to alter their behavior is hard. Providing them with good risk information is just the first step. We then need to connect individuals to resources and support to help them reduce risk. That’s what my team is currently working on — helping people understand their addiction risk and how they can reduce that risk and avoid developing problems.”

Few Adult Smokers and Nonsmokers Think E-Cigarettes Have Lower Levels of Harmful Chemicals Than Cigarettes

BYLINE: Deion Wright

Newswise — About half of cigarette smokers and young adult non-smokers think that nicotine-based electronic cigarettes have the same amount or even more harmful chemicals than regular tobacco-based cigarettes, according to a Rutgers study.

The study, published in Addiction, measured perceived levels of harmful chemicals in e-cigarettes compared with cigarettes using national samples of more than 1,000 adults ages 18 and older who smoke cigarettes and 1,000-plus adults ages 18 to 29 who are nonsmokers. The study also measured associations with e-cigarette/cigarette relative harm perceptions, e-cigarette use and interest. About 20 percent of all participants believed e-cigarettes contain fewer harmful chemicals than cigarettes, while about 30 percent responded that they did not know how the levels compared.

“Our results were interesting to see given that previous review reports suggest e-cigarettes expose users to fewer types and lower levels of harmful and potentially harmful chemicals than cigarettes,” said Olivia Wackowski of Rutgers Center for Tobacco Studies, an associate professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health and lead researcher of the study. “It was also interesting to find that only about half of adult smokers who thought e-cigarettes have fewer harmful chemicals also thought e-cigarettes are less harmful to health.”

E-cigarette harm perception relative to typical cigarettes is a common question included on major national health and tobacco surveys in the United States. However, surveys of e-cigarettes typically haven’t included a question about the perceived exposure to or level of harmful chemicals in e-cigarettes relative to cigarettes.

According to the study researchers, measuring perceptions of e-cigarette and cigarette chemical exposure is important because e-cigarette communications often directly refer to chemicals in some way, which may impact perceptions about chemicals and harms from using e-cigarettes compared to cigarettes.

The study also found an interest in e-cigarette use was significantly higher among those who perceive them to have fewer harmful chemicals than traditional cigarettes and to be less harmful.

Other authors of the study include Michelle T. Bover Manderski, Stefanie K. Gratale and Caitlin V. Weiger of the Rutgers Center for Tobacco Studies as well as Richard J. O’Connor of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R37CA222002. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Study shows usage is lower in California areas that have a full ban on the sale of flavored tobacco products

Newswise — Researchers from the University of California, Irvine found that residents of jurisdictions with a comprehensive sales ban have a 30% reduced odds of using flavored tobacco relative to those living in a jurisdiction without a ban. In contrast, lower use was not observed for residents of jurisdictions that enacted a partial sales ban.

Experts expect that recent passage of Prop 31, which upheld a 2020 state law to prohibit retail sales of certain flavored tobacco products, will lead to an even greater decline in use of flavored tobacco across the state.

In a paper published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, corresponding author David Timberlake, PhD, associate professor of population health and disease prevention with UCI’s Program in Public Health, showed that local sales bans of flavored tobacco over the last few years in California may be working.The burden of disease and death from tobacco use in the United States is overwhelmingly caused by smoking cigarettes and other tobacco products. On top of that burden is the danger of flavored tobacco products, which are particularly appealing to young people who are more likely to experiment with them and become regular users. This habit could lead to a lifetime of addiction and long-term health problems, which is why many jurisdictions throughout California are adopting their own tobacco regulatory policies to protect their communities.

“The drawback of having differing sales restrictions is a patchwork of local policies where someone who can’t buy flavored tobacco in their town can just cross a city line to buy it in a town that does allow it,” Timberlake said. “Our study is one of very few that study flavored tobacco use in banned jurisdictions compared to non-banned jurisdictions.”“Fortunately, California has taken a strong step forward by upholding Senate Bill (SB) 793 this past November to prohibit in-person retailers and vending machines from selling most flavored tobacco products,” said co-author, Denise Payán, PhD, UCI assistant professor of health, society, and behavior. “This will close the gap from the patchwork of local policies and eliminate most partial exemptions.”

Future research is needed to examine the impact of the new statewide policy ban on flavored tobacco products on individual behavior choices. The variability in the strength of associations of comprehensive and partial bans needs to be examined elsewhere to help influence future policy implementation across the country. Researchers state that these policies have the power to lessen and even stop tobacco use being the leading causes of preventable death and disease worldwide.

Additional co-authors include Julian Aviles, a statistician with the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

This study was supported by the University of California’s Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program (TRDRP; Award No. T31IP1678).

Penn Medicine to Open New Crisis Response Center as Part of a Unified Mental Health Care Hub at Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania – Cedar Avenue

Newswise — PHILADELPHIA—Penn Medicine is launching a new community mental health hub at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania — Cedar Avenue (HUP Cedar), co-locating inpatient and outpatient psychiatric care with a new crisis response center (CRC) at the facility. The multi-year plan will put crucial psychiatric and substance use care in easy reach for West and Southwest Philadelphia residents, at a time when both mental illness and drug and alcohol dependence are surging in the city.

The project will begin with moving inpatient psychiatric and drug and alcohol detoxification units from Penn Presbyterian Medical Center to HUP Cedar in July, followed by the opening of a new crisis response center at the facility later in the summer which is expected to provide an estimated 4,000 patient visits each year. The steps will create two comprehensive, fully integrated mental health hubs at Penn Medicine facilities in Philadelphia, offering emergency mental health services and inpatient and outpatient care at both HUP Cedar and Pennsylvania Hospital, which has operated a CRC since 1999. Together, Pennsylvania Hospital and HUP Cedar will have 73 licensed inpatient psychiatric beds and 16 beds for substance use treatment. Additional space at HUP Cedar will allow for expansion of coordinated services to further care for West and Southwest Philadelphia communities over the next five years.

“The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the mental health crisis across the nation. As COVID recedes, we have a moral imperative to tackle this suffering in our communities,” said Kevin B. Mahoney, chief executive officer of the University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS). “Providing easy access to care when people are in crisis changes – and saves – lives. We are committed to the investment and innovation needed to close the gaps in access to care and reverse the toll of mental health and substance use in Philadelphia.”

As one of the nation’s largest cities, Philadelphia’s mental health struggles are a microcosm of broader trends: A Pew Research Center survey from late 2022 reported that 41 percent of Americans — and nearly 60 percent of young adults — have experienced high levels of psychological distress at least once since the early stages of the pandemic. At the same time, more than two-thirds of Americans live in areas without sufficient psychiatrists and other mental health professionals. In Philadelphia, more than 20 percent of the city’s residents are coping with a diagnosed depressive disorder and substance use-related deaths have climbed to record levels.

Similar to the CRC at Pennsylvania Hospital, the HUP Cedar CRC — which will replace the CRC previously operated on the site by Mercy Philadelphia Hospital until its closure in March of 2020 — will be licensed as a crisis intervention walk-in facility and will serve as a discreet psychiatric emergency room, providing triage, evaluation, treatment and social services support for acute substance use and serious psychiatric conditions such as bipolar disorder, major depression, anxiety disorders, and schizophrenia.

The co-location of the inpatient psychiatric units with emergency care provided through the CRC will enable a seamless transition of care for patients, eliminating the wait time and additional steps required to transfer patients to inpatient units at other facilities — a common occurrence in a city where emergency psychiatric resources remain in short supply.

“We know that a lack of quality mental health support and crisis response services has a traumatic ripple effect across families and entire communities. When patients and families are coping with a mental health crisis, the last thing they need to think about is how to navigate a complex system,” said UPHS Chief Operating Officer Michele Volpe. “By putting all our services together, we can help keep patients safer, get them into treatment faster, and better support families as they begin to navigate supporting their loved ones during their hospitalization and recovery.”

Staff at both CRC locations will be connected via a real-time data system providing details on bed availability in order to ensure patients can be placed as quickly as possible and that each location has the right staffing resources. Penn Presbyterian will continue to provide select outpatient psychiatric care as well treatment for substance use disorders after the transition of inpatient services to HUP Cedar.

HUP Cedar is part of the PHMC Public Health Campus on Cedar, which opened in March 2021, transitioning the building from the former Mercy Philadelphia Hospital into a campus offering emergency and inpatient care as well as primary care and community-driven social supports.

Penn Medicine will invest $5.76M toward the opening of the CRC at HUP Cedar as part of the mental health hub project. The CRC reopening has also received funding from the Independence Blue Cross Foundation, and the City of Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health earmarked $4.1 million in HealthChoices reinvestment funds.

In addition to Penn Medicine’s adult mental health services on the site, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia plans to open an inpatient pediatric behavioral health facility, the CHOP Behavioral Health & Crisis Center, on the site, as well. The 46-bed acute inpatient psychiatric facility and 24/7 walk-in crisis center will create a safe, inclusive and restorative setting for children and adolescents.

The second phase of the new mental health hub plan will also increase care capacity at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center (PPMC), by converting the vacated psychiatric beds to medical surgical units. Those steps will help to improve patient movement across the hospital, reducing emergency department wait times and providing additional capacity for post-surgery recovery.

The new services at HUP Cedar are part of Penn Medicine’s wraparound commitment to bringing more mental health care support to the community across each of its mission areas. Penn Integrated Care (PIC), a program, which embeds mental health professionals in primary care practices, launched in 2018. More than 230,000 patients in 24 Penn Medicine primary clinics have access to PIC services. To date, 35,000 patients have been treated directly by PIC clinicians or connected to specialty care in the community.

Beginning this summer, the health system will add a new path for training fellows in drug and alcohol use treatment. That program, for physicians specializing in family medicine, primary care, and emergency medicine, among other disciplines, aims to ensure that providers in multiple settings are equipped to help patients take steps toward recovery and provides a much-needed addition to the existing fellowship in Addiction Psychiatry at Penn Medicine and the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz Veterans Affairs Medical Center (CMC VAMC) in Philadelphia.

In addition, a new consultation service provides psychiatric care to patients hospitalized for complex medical needs at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Hospital, and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center. Future plans include potential opening of a medical-psychiatric unit to ensure that patients with these complex needs are cared for in dedicated spaces.

“Expanding our resources to care for mental health needs in Philadelphia is a core part of our mission,” said Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania CEO Regina Cunningham, PhD, RN. “No matter where people live in the city, we aspire to provide them with support in convenient settings, and work to erase both the stigmas and access problems that stand in the way of helping people get help.”

Is vaping a new gateway into further substance use? New national study shows adolescent vapers much likelier to use cannabis and binge drink

Newswise — A new study of more than 50,000 US adolescents across the country indicates that vaping nicotine is strongly linked with an increased likelihood of high levels use of binge drinking and cannabis usage.

The findings, published today in the peer-reviewed journal Substance Use and Misuse, will add to growing public health concerns about the increased popularity of electronic cigarette (or ‘vaping’) use among young people.

“While the overall health risks of vaping are lower than smoking, electronic cigarettes are still harmful to adolescents and warrant ongoing surveillance – especially as the long-term impacts remain unknown,” says lead author, Noah Kreski from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

“Our results indicate that vaping is not an isolated behaviour, but rather strongly tied to other substance use that can harm adolescents and make quitting nicotine more difficult. Recognising the strong overlap between various forms of substance use, effective intervention efforts should work to simultaneously address vaping, drinking and cannabis use to encourage the health and well-being of young people.”

The researchers used the Monitoring the Future survey – conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) – to track trends in the use of cigarettes, alcohol, cannabis, vaping of both nicotine and cannabis, and other substances for children in school grades 8 (13-14 years old), 10 (15-16 years old) and 12 (17–18 years old).

The team examined data from 51,872 adolescents who took part in the survey between 2017 and 2019. They assessed the links between past 30-day nicotine use (non, smoking-only, vaping-only, and any smoking plus vaping) with past 30-day cannabis use – making adjustments to account for certain demographic factors, such as age, sex, race, parental education and urbanicity of the participants.

Looking at nicotine use and cannabis use (in any form, including vaping), they found that, compared to those who did not use nicotine at all, adolescents who:

The researchers also found a link between past 30-day nicotine use and two-week binge drinking, even after adjustment. The association between smoking and vaping and binge drinking increased in magnitude at greater levels of binge drinking. For instance, compared to those who did not use nicotine at all, adolescents who both smoked and vaped were:

5.6 times more likely to have participated in binge drinking on one occasion.
21.60 times more likely to participated in binge drinking on three to five occasions.
36.53 times more likely to have participated in binge drinking on ten occasions or more.

“The links between vaping-only, or both smoking and vaping, and cannabis use and binge drinking outcomes in adolescents are particularly striking – especially at the highest levels of binge drinking. While the causal direction of these associations is unclear, the size of the effect is concerning given the harms these substances pose to adolescents,” adds Kreski, who is a Data Analyst at Columbia.

“Given the strong links between nicotine use and both cannabis use and binge drinking, there is a need for sustained interventions, advertising and promotion restrictions, and national public education efforts to reduce vaping in adolescents – efforts that acknowledge co-occurring substance use.”

The authors highlight certain limitations of this study relating to the survey. These include that the data was collected from students during the school day, which excluded those who were absent. Nicotine vaping and smoking were also self-reported by participants, which may be vulnerable to measurement and recall bias.

Science-focused messaging could help reduce cannabis use during pregnancy

Newswise — PULLMAN, Wash. —Short science-backed messages about the health risks of using cannabis while pregnant could be an effective way to discourage the dangerous trend.

In a new study published in Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, researchers at Washington State University found that conveying simple, scientific facts about how THC can harm a fetus was associated with reduced intentions to use cannabis while pregnant. This held true for messaging that was written to a group of women, aged 18-40, in either a narrative, story-based format or a non-narrative, factual-based one.

Additionally, the researchers found that short and simple communications designed to increase media literacy, or the ability to discern factual sources of information from non-factual ones, also reduced intentions to use cannabis while pregnant.

As cannabis use continues to gain popularity across the country, the research could help provide effective guidelines on how to communicate to pregnant people about the adverse consequences of using the drug.

“While some messaging around the risks of using cannabis while pregnant exist, as far as we know, there hasn’t been a systematic evaluation of those messages or tests for what types of messages can be most effective,” said Jessica Willoughby, lead author of the study and an associate professor of communication at WSU. “This is becoming a big issue as cannabis use continues to gain popularity and there is an ever-increasing amount of misinformation out there about the drug.”

Cannabis use during pregnancy has been largely understudied, but existing research suggests there are detrimental effects in newborns such as lower birth weight, higher rates of admission to neonatal intensive care units and an increased risk of stillbirth.

Despite this, a startling 70% of pregnant and non-pregnant women believe there is slight to no risk of harm from using cannabis once or twice a week while pregnant, according to a 2015 study.

Prior research conducted by study coauthor and Professor Celestina Barbosa-Leiker of the WSU College of Nursing reveals that many of these women are getting their information about the health risks of using cannabis while pregnant from budtenders and other non-expert sources.

In this work, she asked pregnant and postpartum women about their experiences using cannabis for health-related reasons and they noted that their healthcare providers often lacked knowledge on the impacts of their cannabis use on their baby or gave mixed messages on possible consequences of cannabis use.

For the current study, the WSU researchers designed scientific and media literacy messaging in narrative and non-narrative formats. The narrative formats took bits of information from people’s real-life stories to craft messaging that would resonate with the intended audience. The non-narrative messaging simply conveyed facts, such as THC, the substance that makes you feel high, can also cross the placenta and reach your baby. Giving up marijuana while pregnant can keep THC away from your developing baby.

“We had to be so thoughtful in order not to stigmatize the use of cannabis or particular populations that use cannabis when we were designing the messaging for this study,” said Stacey Hust, study coauthor and a WSU professor of communication. “We even surveyed pregnant people on variables, such as the color scheme and whether or not to include the faces of people we were displaying.”

The researchers then surveyed some 429 women about how the different forms of messaging impacted their decisions to use cannabis. The results of the analysis indicated that straight-forward, non-narrative messages that focused on scientific facts about cannabis use during pregnancy were the most effective solution. While the narrative messages were also effective in the science communication category, the researchers did not find them effective when trying to educate people about media literacy.

“The ambiguity of the more complex messaging may overly complicate things and make it less effective, especially on social media,” Willoughby said. “In fact, our results indicate short Instagram stories can be used to convey factual information but may not provide enough space to discuss complex storylines.”

Moving forward, Willoughby, Hust and Barbosa-Leiker said their hope is that the research will ultimately be used to communicate facts about cannabis use during pregnancy in doctor’s offices, cannabis shops and schools.

“I think we could target medical providers, bud tenders and cannabis stores with this type of messaging to help reach people,” Hust said. “But to be honest, I think this information needs to be provided way before someone can legally use cannabis. We should probably be talking to young women in high school when we are talking to them about reproductive issues and how babies are made.”

May is Melanoma and Skin Cancer Awareness Month. Keep up with the latest news on skin in the Dermatology channel

Skin cancer is the most prevalent form of cancer in the United States, with over 5 million cases diagnosed annually. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that melanoma alone accounts for more than 8,000 deaths each year. Thankfully, skin cancer is highly preventable, making it crucial to prioritize protection. With the arrival of summer and increased sun exposure, the incidence of skin cancer is on the rise, emphasizing the need for self-care. Experts advise everyone to minimize their exposure to harmful UV rays from the sun. To stay informed about the latest skin cancer and dermatology developments, visit Newswise for up-to-date research news and features.

Below are some of the latest headlines in the Dermatology channel.

Survey shows Generation Z adults are unfamiliar with sunburn and tanning risks

-American Academy of Dermatology

Adaptive immunity to ancient retroelements controls the skin tissue threshold of activation

-American Association of Immunologists (AAI)

Bio-active lipids protect against immune-related adverse events due to immune checkpoint blockade therapy

-American Association of Immunologists (AAI)

A Simple Antibacterial Treatment Solves a Severe Skin Problem Caused by Radiation Therapy

-Montefiore Einstein Cancer Center

Tick Safety Tips from Lyme Disease Experts at Tufts

-Tufts University

Reviving exhausted T cells to tackle immunotherapy-resistant cancers