Category: From Newswise – Addiction

Newswise — Drug overdose is the leading cause of injury deaths in young adults in the United States, with fentanyl causing over 70,000 deaths annually.

Many people who use fentanyl become trapped in their addiction out of fear and a low tolerance for the withdrawal symptoms, which include muscle cramps, nausea, chills, sweats and intense cravings. 

They can’t stop using fentanyl, and they also have trouble starting either of the two medications, methadone and buprenorphine, that can dramatically reduce their risk of overdose death.

Research findings published Aug. 29 in Addiction Science & Clinical Practice may offer hope. A pilot study showed that a small amount of ketamine can reduce or eliminate the withdrawal symptoms associated with quitting fentanyl.

“The main takeaway is that we have found an easier way for people trapped in the grip of fentanyl addiction to get started in treatment,” said Dr. Lucinda Grande, a clinical assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She was the study’s lead author. 

“Methadone can be difficult to access due to strict federal regulations, and starting buprenorphine can cause severe withdrawal symptoms before those who start it become stabilized,” added study co-author Dr. Tom Hutch. He is the medical director of the opioid treatment program at We Care Daily Clinics in Auburn, Wash. “Ketamine, at an imperceptibly low dose, helps bridge that gap.” 

Over 14 months, Grande and colleagues in Auburn and Olympia prescribed ketamine to 37 fentanyl-addicted patients whose fear of withdrawal symptoms had deterred them from trying buprenorphine. Twenty-four patients actually tried the drug, and 16 completed the transition to buprenorphine. 

Most patients reported a reduction or elimination of withdrawal symptoms after each ketamine dose, the effect of which lasted for hours. Of the last 12 who completed the transition, 92% remained in treatment for at least 30 days.

Patients placed a ketamine lozenge or syrup under the tongue. The 16 mg dose is a small fraction of that typically used for anesthesia, the main clinical role of ketamine for 50 years, according to Grande. That dosage also is less than half of the smallest ketamine dose prescribed for depression treatment, an increasingly common use of this medication.

Researchers monitored patients daily or almost daily, and refined the treatment strategy based on patient response and prescriber experience.

Grande developed the concept after she learned that emergency-medicine physician and coauthor Dr. Andrew Herring of Oakland, California, used a higher, sedating dose of ketamine successfully in his emergency department to resolve a patient’s severe case of withdrawal from fentanyl addiction. 

Grande is a primary-care and addiction doctor in practice near Olympia who, in the past dozen years, has used low-dose ketamine to treat more than 600 patients for chronic pain and depression. 

Ketamine has gained prominence in the news since actor Matthew Perry of the sitcom “Friends” overdosed on the drug and drowned. Perry had undergone high-dose ketamine treatment for depression, news reports have suggested.

“Our study underscores the enormous potential of this medication for addressing important health problems such as depression, chronic pain and now fentanyl-use disorder,” said Grande. Ketamine’s positive attributes have been overshadowed by Perry’s death, she said.

Grande hopes this pilot study’s results will be confirmed by larger studies. “I am excited about these results,” she said. “This is a wonderful opportunity to save lives.”

Newswise — Combine cyberbullying, smartphone use, lack of sleep and poor mental health, and you have the perfect storm for a teenage meltdown.

Australian researchers have polled more than 50,000 primary and secondary school students aged 7-19 years about the link between their sleep and nighttime phone habits, experience of cyberbullying and stress levels.

Researchers from the Behaviour-Brain-Body Research Centre at the University of South Australia found that across all genders and age groups, phone use overnight not only robbed children of sleep, but it also had a negative impact on their mental health, especially among those who had been cyberbullied.

Whether one habit causes or stems from another is not crystal clear, but the study findings should send a clear signal to parents about the need to manage digital device use at home.

Approximately 66% of teenage girls and 58% of teenage boys (aged 12-19 years) reported being cyberbullied at least once in the preceding school term. Among the girls, 17% said they slept less than eight hours a night and the corresponding figure for the teenage boys was 13%.

Stress levels in the moderate-to-severe range were reported by 38% of teenage girls and 23% of teenage boys.

While cyberbullying and lack of sleep were not as common in primary aged children (7-11 years), one in five reported moderate-to-severe stress.

For the purposes of the study, “nighttime” refers to phone use when children are supposed to be sleeping, not prior to bed.

UniSA researcher and co-author Dr Stephanie Centofanti says that girls are particularly vulnerable because their smartphone use at night is higher than other age groups and they start using social media at a younger age.

“We found that frequency of nighttime phone use and getting less than eight hours sleep a night not only peaked in early adolescence but was also more evident in young girls,” Dr Centofanti says.

“Pre-teens are at higher risk for socio-emotional disorders because they are at a developmental stage where they are less prepared cognitively, behaviourally and neurobiologically.”

The researchers say that outside of the digital environment, boys are more likely to be physically bullied, while girls normally resort to psychological or relational bullying, which is more easily enabled online.

Approximately 15% of children in the study reported being cyberbullied, with a higher frequency of boys in primary school and girls in secondary school.

More than one third of primary school children and over 60% of teenagers in the study reported using their phone at night when they were supposed to be sleeping.

Of the children who experienced cyberbullying, almost 75% admitted they checked their phone throughout the night, compared to less than half for those who had never been cyberbullied.

“It is clear that parents need to pay closer attention to managing smartphone use at night, particularly if their children are more vulnerable to cyberbullying, and to ensure their children get enough sleep,” Dr Centofanti says.

The findings are published in the journal Adolescents.

Notes for editors

“Nighttime phone use and past exposure to cyberbullying and their impact on sleep and psychological wellbeing in Australian children aged 7-19 years” is co-authored by researchers from the University of South Australia and Resilient Youth Australia. DOI: 10.3390/adolescents4030025

Newswise — Irvine, Calif., Aug. 20, 2024 — A team of researchers led by the University of California, Irvine has discovered that an antioxidant found in rosemary extract can reduce volitional intakes of cocaine by moderating the brain’s reward response, offering a new therapeutic target for treating addiction.

The study, recently published online in the journal Neuron, describes team members’ focus on a region of the brain called the globus pallidus externus, which acts as a gatekeeper that regulates how we react to cocaine. They discovered that within the GPe, parvalbumin-positive neurons are crucial in controlling the response to cocaine by changing the activity neurons releasing the pleasure molecule dopamine.

“There are currently no effective therapeutics for dependence on psychostimulants such as cocaine, which, along with opioids, represent a substantial health burden,” said corresponding author Kevin Beier, UC Irvine associate professor of physiology and biophysics. “Our study deepens our understanding of the basic brain mechanisms that increase vulnerability to substance use disorder-related outcomes and provides a foundation for the development of new interventions.”

Findings in mice revealed that globus pallidus externus parvalbumin-positive cells, which indirectly influence the release of dopamine, become more excitable after being exposed to cocaine. This caused a drop in the expression of certain proteins that encode membrane channels that usually help keep the globus pallidus cell activity in check. Researchers found that carnosic acid, an isolate of rosemary extract, selectively binds to the affected channels, providing an avenue to reduce response to the drug in a relatively specific fashion.

“Only a subset of individuals are vulnerable to developing a substance use disorder, but we cannot yet identify who they are. If globus pallidus cell activity can effectively predict response to cocaine, it could be used to measure likely responses and thus serve as a biomarker for the most vulnerable,” Beier said. “Furthermore, it’s possible that carnosic acid could be given to those at high risk to reduce the response to cocaine.”

The next steps in this research include thoroughly assessing negative side effects of carnosic acid and determining the ideal dosage and timing. The team is also interested in testing its efficacy in reducing the desire for other drugs and in developing more potent and targeted variants.

In addition to UC Irvine researchers, scientists from the University of West Virginia and the University of Colorado participated in the study. See the full list here.

This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, One Mind, the Alzheimer’s Association, New Vision Research, BrightFocus Foundation, and the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation.

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UC Irvine is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and is ranked among the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News & World Report. The campus has produced five Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UC Irvine has more than 36,000 students and offers 224 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $7 billion annually to the local economy and $8 billion statewide. For more on UC Irvine, visit www.uci.edu.

Media access: Radio programs/stations may, for a fee, use an on-campus studio with a Comrex IP audio codec to interview UC Irvine faculty and experts, subject to availability and university approval. For more UC Irvine news, visit news.uci.edu. Additional resources for journalists may be found at https://news.uci.edu/media-resources.

NOTE TO EDITORS: PHOTO AVAILABLE AT
https://news.uci.edu/2024/08/20/uc-irvine-led-team-finds-that-compound-in-rosemary-extract-can-reduce-cocaine-sensitivity/

Newswise — For many years, addiction research has focused on chemical dependencies like drugs and alcohol. However, new phenomena such as video game and social media addictions are not as extensively studied. 

Dr. Puneet Manchanda from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business dives into the world of modern addiction. He talks about his research on how these technologies impact us and what steps can help prevent addiction.

The latest episode of the Curious by Nature podcast, titled “How Addictive Are Companies Making Video Games” featuring Dr. Puneet Manchanda, is now available on Spotify and Apple Podcast.

Curious by Nature, presented by Newswise, is a podcast for curious people. In each episode, listeners can travel briefly into the fascinating world that comes with years of dedication to one field of study. Be inspired by the many amazing things that are going on right now, some of which may have a major effect on our lives. Enjoy this concentrated knowledge from experts. We hope you can take inspiration from glimpses of innovation, dedication, and discovery.

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Newswise — If you’re worried that your kids are wasting too much of their summer playing video games, there could be an unexpected payoff in the future.

A new study by the Rutgers Education and Employment Research Center (EERC) reveals that gaming, modding, and related hobbies can form a career pathway into the high-demand IT field, especially for adolescents and teens with supportive parents.

“Students don’t realize it at first, but playing video games and having related hobbies is often really helpful when choosing a career and even while job hunting,” said Rutgers EERC Research Analyst Eliza Peterson, the lead author of the study. “For example, if they’re hosting a Minecraft server for their friends, they could parlay those skills and lessons into a Server Administration major, and later, maybe a career in that area of IT.”

As part of a larger study supported by the National Science Foundation, Rutgers researchers interviewed 43 students and alumni of the Ivy Tech Community College School of Information Technology in Indiana. The interviews, conducted over three years, revealed a common trajectory.

Most participants became interested in technology at a young age, often while bonding with their parents, and more than half of them (26 of 43) eventually developed a hobby such as gaming, modifying games (modding), coding, programming, or building computers.

As teens, they did not expect that their passion for playing Minecraft or Fortnite could eventually lead to a job. But they eventually had a revelation – what the researchers call the “hobby-to-career reckoning” – and decided to study IT in their community college.

“I realized I have a lot of fun doing this,” said one gamer who decided to change majors. “I made the switch because I realized that I felt like everyone was pushing me to [study] business. But what I really enjoyed was learning programming.”

One alumnus, now a software engineer at J.P. Morgan, described how his coding hobby prepared him for the complexities of handling IT at a large financial institution: “That’s kind of where I shine, because the sort of sloppy hobbyist coder in me has been doing that all my life.”

A recent Pew Research Center study finds that 85% of American teens play video games, and 41% play them at least once a day. Studies have shown that gaming can improve cognitive function and memory, while helping gamers to develop important soft skills.

The Rutgers study adds to this growing body of work by highlighting a pathway from the thumb-cramping World of Warcraft into the lucrative world of IT work.

There are nearly 4.5 million computer and information technology professionals in the U.S., earning a median annual wage of $104,420, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s more than double the median annual wage for all occupations ($48,060).

More than 377,000 computer and IT job openings are expected each year, and overall employment is projected to grow “much faster” than the average for other occupations by 2032, including 25% growth for software developers and 32% for information security analysts.

Many of those future IT professionals could be playing Roblox or Brawl Stars today. But the Rutgers study notes there are several obstacles on the journey from hobby to career.

An estimated 42 million Americans lack broadband internet access, disproportionately affecting low-income families. This “digital divide” may prevent some students from developing an interest in the IT field. In addition, parental skepticism can deter some students from pursuing their passion.

While many of the participants felt supported in their decision to study IT, others were met with resistance at home. One first-generation student told the researchers that his family “didn’t get it” and urged him to enter a different field, but he pushed forward and earned an associate degree in software development.

“If you’re a parent or educator, I would encourage you to reframe the way you think about gaming,” Peterson said. “The gamers in your life could be gaining useful – and potentially lucrative – skills through these hobbies. In fact, you may even want to foster these hobbies further, and help them to see, ‘Hey, I could use this later on in life, in school or at work.’”

So the next time your teen turns on the PS5, perhaps think of it as employment training.

About the Study

Not “Just a Hobby”: The Influence of Early Interest and Hobbies on Community College IT Student Decision-Making by Eliza Peterson, Michelle Van Noy, Sam Scovill, and Renee Edwards appears in the Journal of Advanced Technical Education.

About Us

The Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations (SMLR) is the world’s leading source of expertise on managing and representing workers, designing effective organizations, and building strong employment relationships. 

SMLR’s Education and Employment Research Center (EERC) strives to improve education and training to ensure students and workers are prepared to be successful in today’s workforce. 

Newswise — A new scientific review of 148 studies enrolling over 4.3 million adult chronic pain patients treated with prescription opioid painkillers has found that nearly one in ten patients experiences opioid dependence or opioid use disorder and nearly one in three shows symptoms of dependence and opioid use disorder.  This University of Bristol-led study, published in Addiction, provides a more accurate — and more concerning — rate of opioid misuse than has previously been calculated. 

Companies like Oxycontin manufacturer Purdue Pharma have claimed that fewer than 1% of opioid prescriptions result in problems for patients.  This new review, funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR),  makes clear that such claims greatly understate the risk of opioid misuse and addiction.  

The researchers divided the 148 studies into four general categories, depending on how the studies defined problematic opioid use: 

1. dependence and opioid use disorder: 43 studies that identified problematic opioid use through diagnostic codes (formal diagnoses using precise definitions);
2. signs and symptoms of dependence and opioid use disorder: 44 studies that looked for behaviours indicating dependence and opioid use disorder, such as craving, tolerance, or withdrawal, without use of specific diagnostic codes; 
3. aberrant behaviour: 76 studies that looked for inappropriate or concerning behaviour, such as seeking early refills, repeated dose escalations, or frequently lost prescriptions; and
4. at risk of dependence and opioid use disorder: 8 studies that looked for characteristics that might increase the risk of developing opioid dependence or opioid use disorder in the future; however, the characteristics do not fall within previous categories of aberrant behaviour or dependence and opioid use disorder.

Some studies reported multiple results within the same participants using different measurement criteria, so the sum of the number of studies in each category equals more than 148.  The prevalence (frequency) of problematic opioid use for each category was: 

1. Dependence and opioid use disorder: 3%, or nearly 1 in 10 patients.
2. Signs and symptoms of dependence and opioid use disorder: 6%, nearly 1 in 3 patients.
3. Aberrant behaviour: 22%, more than 1 in 5 patients.
4. At risk of dependence and opioid use disorder: 4%, nearly 1 in 8 patients.

Lead author Kyla Thomas, Professor of Public Health Medicine at the University of Bristol, explained: “Clinicians and policy makers need a more accurate estimate of the prevalence of problematic opioid use in pain patients so that they can gauge the true extent of the problem, change prescribing guidance if necessary, and develop and implement effective interventions to manage the problem.  Knowing the size of the problem is a necessary step to managing it.”

The studies in this review were predominantly from North American research and high-income countries. One hundred and six of the 148 studies were conducted between 2010 and 2021; the oldest study was from 1985.  Study size ranged from 15 to 2,304,181 patients. Due to the high heterogeneity of the studies, these findings should be interpreted with caution. 

Paper

‘Prevalence of problematic pharmaceutical opioid use in patients with chronic non-cancer pain: A systematic review and meta-analysis’ by Kyla H. Thomas et al. in Addiction

Audio

Newswise — Since 2009, U.S. high school seniors have reported steep declines in medical use, misuse and availability of the three most commonly prescribed and misused controlled substances for teens, a new University of Michigan study found. 

Researchers compared use trends, sources and perceived availability of opioids, stimulants and benzodiazepines from 2009 to 2022. The research letter detailing the findings is scheduled to appear July 24 in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association.  

“To put these findings in context, the reduction over the past decade was like going from 1 in every 9 high school students using prescription drugs nonmedically down to 1 in every 40 high school students,” said Sean Esteban McCabe, U-M professor of nursing and director of the Center for the Study of Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking and Health.  

“While this decrease is encouraging, we need to be vigilant because any amount of nonmedical use poses risks, especially with the danger posed by counterfeit pills.”

Other findings from 2009 through 2022: 

• Lifetime medical use decreased from 24% to 16%. 
• Past-year misuse declined from 11% to 2%.
• The percentage of adolescents who reported being given prescription medications by friends or buying them from friends, both fell by more than half. 
• In 2009, adolescents who reported misusing prescription medications said the most common source was friends. Now, it is one’s own prescription (37%).
• Among adolescents who reported misuse, those with multiple sources for obtaining prescription medications dropped from 56% to 29%.
• Perceived difficulty of obtaining prescription medications for misuse declined across the three drug classes.
• The percentage of adolescents who reported that they thought it would be impossible to get prescription drugs for misuse increased from 36% to 49%. 

School closures during COVID accounted for the largest changes because students had limited contact with each other, and opportunities to sell or give away prescription drugs to friends declined, McCabe said.

Study co-author Philip Veliz, research associate professor of nursing, said the declines may be partially due to changes in prescribing practices, especially for opioids. The study did not examine specific trends based on drug class. 

“Prescribing practices have changed dramatically because we had an opioid epidemic, which turned into a heroin epidemic, and we’re still reeling from that, especially with fentanyl,” Veliz said. “A lot of this also has to do with parents having better knowledge and oversight of these medications.”

The steep decline in teens who misused prescription medications in the past year, from 11% to 2%, surprised researchers.

“That’s a massive decline. It used to be 1 in 9 kids, now it’s an incredibly rare event at this point,” Veliz said. “The second surprise was that … nearly half of kids say it’s probably impossible to get these drugs if they want to use them nonmedically right now. That’s a big chunk of the adolescent population, and this is just off the table.” 

Another surprise is that the landscape has not returned to what it looked like before COVID, McCabe said. 

“Adolescents have found it more difficult to obtain prescription stimulants for nonmedical use in recent years, which is a positive sign,” he said. “There needs to be more attention on stimulant use and diversion, and our team is currently working on such studies to help inform clinical guidelines for ADHD and stimulant use disorder.”

This study was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and used data from 12th grade students collected in 2009 through 2022 from the Monitoring the Future study, an annual survey at University of Michigan that tracks student substance use and other related trends.

Co-authors include: Emily Pasman, Tim Wilens, Ty Schepis, Vita McCabe and Jason Ford.

Study: Adolescent use, diversion sources, and perceived difficulty of obtaining prescription medications (DOI: 10.1001/jama.2024.12030)