Tag: user_id 13800

Newswise — (SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — A study in Psychology of Addictive Behaviors by researchers at UC Davis Health and the University of Washington surveyed teens over a six-month period to better understand their motives for using cannabis.

The researchers found that teens who have more “demand” for cannabis (meaning they are willing to consume more when it is free and spend more overall to obtain it) are likely to use it for enjoyment.

Using cannabis for enjoyment (“to enjoy the effects of it”) was linked to using more of it and experiencing more negative consequences.

Teens who have more demand for cannabis were also likely to use it to cope (“to forget your problems”). Using cannabis to cope was linked to experiencing more negative consequences, as identified by the Marijuana Consequences Checklist. Examples of negative effects include having trouble remembering things, difficulty concentrating and acting foolish or goofy. 

Cannabis — also called marijuana, pot or weed — is the most used federally illegal drug in the United States. As of November 2023, 24 states and the District of Columbia have legalized cannabis for medicinal and recreational use. At the federal level, marijuana remains a Schedule One substance under the Controlled Substances Act.

“Understanding why adolescents use marijuana is important for prevention and intervention,” said Nicole Schultz, first author of the study and an assistant professor in the UC Davis Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. “We know that earlier onset of cannabis use is associated with the likelihood of developing a cannabis use disorder. It is important we understand what variables contribute to their use so that we can develop effective strategies to intervene early,” Schultz said.  

Cannabis a public health concern

Cannabis is the most used psychoactive substance among adolescents. In 2022, 30.7% of twelfth graders reported using cannabis in the past year, and 6.3% reported using cannabis daily in the past 30 days. 

The increased use is a public health concern, as cannabis can have significant impacts on teen health. A study earlier this year from Columbia University found teens who use cannabis recreationally are two to four times as likely to develop psychiatric disorders, such as depression and suicidality, than teens who do not use cannabis. Teens are also at risk for addiction or cannabis use disorder, where they try but cannot quit using cannabis.

When talking about prevention and intervention with addictive substances, it is essential to know why people use the substances, according to Schultz.

“The reasons often change over time. At the beginning, someone might use a substance for recreational reasons but have different motives later when the substance has become a problem for them,” she said.

For the study, the researchers used mediation analysis to focus on two motives: enjoyment and coping. They examined how these two motives explained the relationship between cannabis demand — a measure of how important or “reinforcing” cannabis is to the user — and cannabis-related outcomes, which included negative consequences and use.

Study participants were between the ages of 15 and 18. Participants completed an initial survey and follow-up surveys at three months and six months. High school students comprised 60.7% of the participants, and four-year college students comprised 24.7%. All lived in the greater metropolitan area of Seattle, where the legalized age for recreational cannabis use is 21 and older.

Of these participants, 87.6% identified as white, 19.1% as Asian or Asian American, 16.9% identified as Hispanic or Latinx, 4.5% as Black or African American, 3.4% as American Indian or Alaska Native and 3.4% identified with another race. Participants could choose more than one selection for race.

The researchers found that greater cannabis demand was significantly associated with using cannabis for enjoyment. Using for enjoyment was also significantly associated with cannabis use for the young study participants.

“This finding makes sense because using for enjoyment is typically related to the initiation of use versus problematic use. And given the age of the participants in this study, they may have short histories of use,” Schultz said.

Being willing to consume more cannabis at no cost, spend more money on cannabis overall, and continue spending at higher costs was positively associated with using cannabis for coping reasons.

Participants who used cannabis for coping and enjoyment both reported experiencing negative consequences from cannabis use. These included feeling increased anxiety, making decisions that were later regretted and getting in trouble with school or an employer.

The researchers noted several limitations of the study, including a lack of diversity, with nearly 88% of the survey participants identifying as white. Another limitation was that the participants’ cannabis usage was self-reported. The study results may also be specific to regions like Seattle, where cannabis has been legalized for adults.

“The current study suggests that encouraging substance-free activities that are fun for adolescents and help adolescents cope with negative feelings may help them use less cannabis and experience fewer negative consequences from use,” said Jason J. Ramirez senior author of the study. Ramirez is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington and a faculty member of the Center for the Study of Health and Risk Behaviors.

Additional authors include Tessa Frohe from the University of Washington and Christopher J. Correia from Auburn University.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has a website and a national hotline, at 1-800-662-4357, for individuals and families facing substance use disorders. Information about cannabis use disorder is available on the Centers for Disease Control webpage.

This research was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (R21DA045092) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (F32AA028667, T32AA007455, K01AA030053)

Resources

BYLINE: Patti Zielinski

Newswise — Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) — a behavioral intervention that integrates training in mindfulness, emotion regulation strategies and savoring of natural rewards — could hold the key to mitigating relapse in women undergoing medically assisted opioid use disorder treatment, a Rutgers study found.

The pilot study published in the journal Explore, is the first to evaluate the potential neural changes that underlie women’s emotion regulation and craving after an eight-week MORE intervention.

Previous studies have shown that women report higher opioid craving and show a greater inability to control their drug urges than men. Although medications, like buprenorphine, can be effective in mitigating urges in the short-term by limiting biological changes associated with acute withdrawal, it is less effective at long-term adherence in avoiding relapse with other illicit drugs.

“While these medications help with withdrawal, they do not fully engage the core regulatory and affective processing circuits that give people control over negative emotion and do not help to address opioid craving in a sustainable way,” said the lead author Suchismita Ray, an associate professor at Rutgers School of Health Professions. “This is where complementary therapies, such as MORE, could play a key role.”

MORE, which was developed by Eric L. Garland at The University of Utah, is centered on three key therapeutic processes:

• Mindfulness, which trains a person to become aware of when their attention has become fixated on addictive cues, stressors or pain, then to shift from affective to sensory processing of craving, stress or pain sensations and re-orient their attention through mindful breathing.
• Reappraisal of thoughts to disengage from negative emotions and addictive behaviors and turn toward positive thoughts that promote resilience, meaning and active coping behaviors.
• Savoring naturally rewarding experiences (nature, time with a loved one) in a mindful way and recognize the positive emotional responses to the experience.

Researchers studied nine women in residential treatment who were on medications for opioid use disorder and completed an eight-week MORE intervention once a week for two hours. Both before and after the eight-week period, researchers gave participants an emotion regulation questionnaire and then scanned their brains in a magnetic resonance imaging machine while they listening to a 10-minute guided MORE meditation and viewed a picture of an outdoor garden to measure the brain’s communication during the meditation.

“Prior studies have shown that the inability to handle negative emotion and drug craving are major determinants of drug relapse. We examined the immediate effects of the 10-minute guided MORE meditation on mood and craving, then looked at the effects of the eight-week MORE intervention on brain communication and how well the women regulated their emotions,” Ray said. “The results show that a single 10-minute guided MORE meditation without any prior meditation experience immediately improved participants’ mood. The eight-week MORE intervention boosted their emotional awareness and strengthened their impulse control — factors that are important in preventing relapse.”

In addition, researchers found that the eight-week MORE intervention resulted in significantly increased communication between the areas of the brain that may help women with opioid use disorder to better control their negative emotion and drug craving.

“What this could mean is if an opioid user experiences stress or a craving for an opioid, she can immediately practice a 10-minute MORE meditation, which will improve her mood in the moment and potentially prevent her from taking the drug,” Ray said. “If that person also takes part in the eight-week MORE intervention, she could reap additional long-term benefits to control negative emotion and opioid craving and better maintain sobriety.”

Other Rutgers authors include Jamil Bhanji and Mauricio Delgado (Rutgers–Newark) and Patricia Dooley Budsock and Nina A. Cooperman (Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School). Eric L. Garland from The University of Utah is also an author on this pilot study.

The authors would like to acknowledge The Rutgers University Brain Imaging Center in Newark where the subject scanning took place for this pilot study.

Newswise — DALLAS – Dec. 07, 2023 – UT Southwestern Medical Center is leading three multicenter clinical trials funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) focused on potential treatments for methamphetamine or cocaine addiction.

Hundreds of patients will participate in the trials at UT Southwestern and other sites across the country, making them the largest trials ever conducted for this purpose, said Principal Investigator Madhukar Trivedi, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry.

“Prevalence of methamphetamine and cocaine use disorders continues to increase, and there are no treatments approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for either of these conditions. These studies could offer the first medical treatments for individuals suffering from stimulant addictions and help them regain control over their lives,” said Dr. Trivedi, an Investigator in the Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute and founding Director of the Center for Depression Research and Clinical Care at UT Southwestern.

An estimated 1.6 million people over age 12 in the U.S. have methamphetamine use disorder (MUD) and 1.4 million have cocaine use disorder (CUD), according to NIDA. Tens of thousands die from these chronic conditions each year, and those who survive typically have vast disruptions in their social relationships, work, and other aspects of daily life.

The three studies, funded at a total of nearly $30 million, are evaluating the effectiveness of drugs and other therapies for the conditions. They include:

• A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial to test injections of extended-release naltrexone every three weeks and extended-release buprenorphine every four weeks for people with CUD. Naltrexone is prescribed for opioid use disorder and alcohol use disorder. A combination similar to this that used injections of extended-release naltrexone and oral sustained-release bupropion showed promise for patients with MUD in a study by Dr. Trivedi and colleagues published in 2021 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
• A trial to test the feasibility and efficacy of transcranial magnetic stimulation for patients with either MUD or CUD. The procedure uses magnetic fields to stimulate cortical regions of the brain.
• A trial comparing the feasibility, efficacy, and safety of intravenously delivered ketamine (an anesthetic) versus midazolam (a sedative) in patients with MUD.

A fourth study, expected to begin next year, is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial to test the efficacy of extended-release naltrexone plus bupropion XL compared with matched injectable and oral placebo in reducing methamphetamine use in individuals with moderate or severe MUD. This study is being done to replicate the findings from Dr. Trivedi’s 2021 study.

Dr. Trivedi has also received funding from NIDA for several smaller trials focused on other aspects of substance use disorders. These include a study aimed at developing new approaches to recruit Black patients with substance abuse disorders for clinical trials to reduce health disparities; a study exploring a potential method to supervise patients who take methadone at home to treat opioid abuse disorder; and a study assessing the feasibility of web-based software to help primary care physicians screen, diagnose, and prescribe treatments for opioid abuse disorder.

“Substance abuse disorders bring immense bias and stigma, but they are medical conditions that need treatments,” Dr. Trivedi said. “These trials may result in treatments that can truly help patients.”

Dr. Trivedi holds the Betty Jo Hay Distinguished Chair in Mental Health and the Julie K. Hersh Chair for Depression Research and Clinical Care. Dr. Trivedi also has served as a consultant to companies that develop treatments for substance abuse disorders.

About UT Southwestern Medical Center  

UT Southwestern, one of the nation’s premier academic medical centers, integrates pioneering biomedical research with exceptional clinical care and education. The institution’s faculty members have received six Nobel Prizes and include 26 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 21 members of the National Academy of Medicine, and 13 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators. The full-time faculty of more than 3,100 is responsible for groundbreaking medical advances and is committed to translating science-driven research quickly to new clinical treatments. UT Southwestern physicians provide care in more than 80 specialties to more than 120,000 hospitalized patients, more than 360,000 emergency room cases, and oversee nearly 5 million outpatient visits a year.

It’s the most wonderful time…of the year?

Are you looking for new story ideas that are focused on the winter holiday season? Perhaps you’re working on a story on managing stress and anxiety during the holidays? Perhaps you’re working on a story on seasonal affective disorder? Or perhaps your editor asked you to write a story on tracking Santa?  Look no further. Check out the Winter Holidays channel. 

Below are some of the latest story leads that concern this festive season.

Take a stab at avoiding holiday kitchen accidents this year

-Midwest Orthopaedics at RUSH

People who live farther from the equator may be more likely to experience seasonal affective disorder

-Baylor Scott and White Health

Expert shares strategies for managing holiday stress and anxiety

-Virginia Tech

More Than Just Joy and Laughter, Tips For Navigating The Hard Parts Of The Holidays: Anxiety, Stress, Loneliness, and Disappointment

-Hackensack Meridian Health

Healing Over the Holidays: A nurse’s guide to spending the holidays at the hospital

-Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Holiday gathering tips from Cornell family relationships expert

-Cornell University

Virginia Tech expert shares ways to have a more sustainable and eco-friendly holiday season

-Virginia Tech

Expert offers tips for caring for fresh holiday trees, like the U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree

-West Virginia University

Joy Takes the Holidays Off for Some Older People

-Cedars-Sinai

What’s behind the holiday-suicide myth

-Annenberg Public Policy Center

Ohio State survey finds Americans struggle to maintain healthy habits during the holiday season

-Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center

MSU experts: What to know about consumer preferences this shopping season

-Michigan State University

Even a joyous holiday season can cause stress for most Americans

-American Psychological Association (APA)

Horticulture agent offers tips on winter holiday plant acquisition and care

-Virginia Tech

Newswise — Although widely considered a blunder of public policy, the alcohol prohibition laws of early 20th century America may have led to increased longevity for those born in places where alcohol was banned, according to new research from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

The study — recently published in the journal Economics and Human Biology and co-authored by Jason Fletcher of UW’s La Follette School of Public Affairs — is the first to research the long-term effects of Prohibition Era on longevity, adding to the understanding of the longer-term costs of alcohol exposure during pregnancy. The findings come as we mark the 90th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition on Dec. 5, 2023. They also come at a time when the rate of women who drink during pregnancy has recently increased from 9.2 percent in 2011 to 11.3 percent in 2018, according to the study. A 2022 CDC report found that number now stands at nearly 14 percent.

Using advanced analytical methods on data from the prohibition era, this study provides important nuance to the assessment of prohibition’s effects on public health and could have important implications for policies aimed at reducing maternal alcohol use.

“Researchers now understand that exposures during pregnancy, due to interruptions to fetal development, can have long term cascading effects on later-life health,” Fletcher says. “Modern evaluation tools and new data opportunities allow us to look back at policies from 100 years ago to assess their long-term impact in ways we’ve never been able to do before.”

Fletcher and his co-author, Hamid Noghanibehambari from Austin Peay State University and an affiliate of UW–Madison’s Center for Demography of Health and Aging, used Social Security Administration death records from 1975-2005 that were linked to the 1940 U.S. census. They identified counties of residence and determined whether alcohol sales were legal or prohibited at the time of birth.

Because parts of the country became “dry” through state and federal regulation at different times between 1900-1930, data from this period served as a natural experiment for investigating these effects. Fletcher and Noghanibehambari were able to compare the old-age longevity of individuals who were exposed to prohibition laws during early life and childhood to those who were not.

They found that being born in a county that went dry due to state or federal regulations  correlated with roughly 0.17 additional years of longevity during old age. Taking other factors into account, such as the likelihood of women drinking during pregnancy at a time when little was known about the dangers of maternal alcohol consumption, they calculated that prohibition may have resulted in an average of 1.7 additional years for those born in counties where alcohol was banned.

To better understand the size of this observed increase in longevity, the study also compared these results with the overall change in life expectancy for Americans born between 1900-1930. Overall, this group experienced a sharp and unprecedented increase of about 11.8 years in life expectancy due to factors such as improvements in medical technology and increases in income and welfare. The effect of 1.7 years due to exposure to the temperance movement is equivalent to nearly 15% of the overall life expectancy improvements of those born at this time.

Along with recent studies that suggest that lowering alcohol availability due to prohibition reduced mortality, decreased drug-related crime and improved child health, this research helps shed light on the effects of alcohol policy on public health.

This research is funded in part by the National Institute of Aging (R01AG060109) and the UW–Madison Center for Demography of Health and Aging through a National Institute of Aging core grant (P30 AG17266).

Newswise — More older Americans use cannabis now than before the pandemic, with 12% saying they’ve consumed a THC-containing substance in the past year and 4% saying they do so multiple times a week, according to a new study of people aged 50 to 80. Those who drink alcohol at risky levels have a much higher rate of cannabis use.

The new findings, published in the journal Cannabis and Cannabinoids Research by a team from the University of Michigan’s Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, suggest a need for more education and screening of older adults for cannabis-related risks.

“As the stress of the pandemic and the increased legalization of cannabis by states converged, our findings suggest cannabis use increased among older adults nationally. Older adults represent a vulnerable age group for cannabis use due to interactions with medications, risky driving, cannabis-related mental health impacts and increased possibility of falls and memory issues,” said Anne Fernandez, Ph.D., an addiction psychologist in the U-M Addiction Center and Department of Psychiatry who led the study.

The data in the study come from the National Poll on Healthy Aging, which IHPI runs with funding from AARP and Michigan Medicine, U-M’s academic medical center. The national poll of 2,023 older adults was taken in January 2021, nine months into the official pandemic declaration and just as the first COVID-19 vaccines were being made available to the groups at the highest risk.

The 12% overall past-year use of cannabis seen in the new study is higher than the 9.5% seen in 2019 by other researchers pre-pandemic, and far higher than the 3% seen in another study in 2006, when only 12 states had passed medical cannabis laws. The NPHA in 2017 found that 6% of older adults had used cannabis for medical purposes.

In the new study, in addition to the 4% who said they use cannabis products four or more times a week, another 5% said they use cannabis once a month or less. The poll question asked about use of any product containing THC, the main psychoactive component of cannabis — including edibles – and used multiple common names for cannabis. It did not differentiate between medical and recreational use of cannabis.

Older adults who said they were unemployed, those who said they were unmarried and had no partner, and those who said they drank alcohol were more likely to say they used cannabis.

Fernandez notes an especially concerning finding: those whose alcohol use was high enough to cause physical and psychological harms were nearly eight times as likely to say they had used cannabis in the past year. But even those with low-risk alcohol drinking patterns were more than twice as likely to say they had used cannabis in the past year.

This group of dual-substance users is one that doctors and public health officials should pay special attention to, she said.

“Other research has shown that using both alcohol and cannabis increases the chance that a person will drive while impaired,” she explained. “They are also more likely to have physical and mental health issues, including substance use disorders. Screening for alcohol use, cannabis use, and other drug use could help more people get counseling and reduce their risk and risk to others.”

While there were no statistical differences among older adults by age, health or mental health status, income or education, those who said they had Hispanic backgrounds were less likely than non-Hispanic older adults to say they used cannabis. Fernandez says this is consistent with other research showing lower cannabis use in the Latino community.

She advises any older adult who chooses to use cannabis products for any reason to be open with their health care provider about it, especially if they also drink alcohol or take certain medications. Physicians, nurse practitioners and pharmacists can advise if any medications a person is taking might interact with cannabis, including ones for insomnia, depression and anxiety, opioid-containing pain medications, seizure medications, and blood thinners.

For more about the poll methodology, see https://www.healthyagingpoll.org/survey-methods

In addition to Fernandez, the study’s authors are U-M addiction psychologist Lara Coughlin, Ph.D., poll deputy director Erica S. Solway, Ph.D., poll manager Dianne C. Singer, poll director Jeffrey T. Kullgren, M.D., M.S., M.P.H., poll data lead Matthias Kirch, M.S. and Preeti N. Malani, M.D., former poll director and current poll senior advisor.

In addition to the poll funding, Fernandez has research funding from the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (AA023869).

Prevalence and Frequency of Cannabis Use Among Adults Ages 50–80 in the United States, Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research, DOI: 10.1089/can.2023.0056 https://doi-org.proxy.lib.umich.edu/10.1089/can.2023.0056

Newswise — A nearly decade-long study by UCLA researchers found that substance abuse treatment of any kind may help to reduce methamphetamine usage among men who have sex with other men – a population that has been disproportionately impacted by the U.S. methamphetamine crisis in recent years.

The findings come from the mSTUDY, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), and are published in the Journal of Substance Use and Addiction Treatment. The study analyzed responses from a group of nearly 300 men in Los Angeles who self-reported how frequently they used methamphetamine in the previous six months and whether they were receiving substance use treatment during that time. The reports were collected from 2014-2022 with a total of 285 participants who reported using methamphetamine at least once.

UCLA researchers found that daily methamphetamine users who were receiving some form of substance use treatment – whether it be for meth, opioids, cannabis or other substances — were twice as likely to report a reduction in their methamphetamine usage during their next visit compared to those not receiving treatment.

Additionally, they found participants who received a form of substance use treatment had longer periods of abstinence as well as reduced periods of weekly or daily use. Researchers say the findings highlight the importance of treatment programs that focus on use reduction rather than those that require a commitment to abstinence.

“It speaks to that fact that even though treatment options for methamphetamine are limited, it’s important to be able to try and increase access to treatment for people and increase treatment options,” said Allison Rosen, the study’s lead author and an epidemiologist at the UCLA Department of Family Medicine. “And that treatment of some kind seems to work. We can’t really say what the mechanism is but maybe just being connected to the treatment system is valuable in itself.”

The mSTUDY’s lead investigators are Drs. Pamina Gorbach, Department of Epidemiology, Fielding School of Public Health and Division of Infectious Disease, David Geffen School of Medicine and Steven Shoptaw, Department of Family Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine.

“These findings are groundbreaking in showing that people reduce their frequency of methamphetamine use following substance use treatment,” Shoptaw said. “The health benefits to reducing methamphetamine use include lowering risks for drug-related physical adverse effects and improving odds for better social, economic, and mental health status. These data provide strong evidence supporting the significance of outcomes to substance use treatment beyond requirements for complete abstinence.”

The U.S. has seen a significant rise in methamphetamine use and in recent years. A National Institutes of Health study in 2021 found that from 2015 through 2019, the number of American adults who reported using meth for more than 100 days of the year increased by 66% while the number of overdose deaths increased by 180%. Recent studies have shown men who have sex with men are disproportionately more likely than the general population to use methamphetamine, which can increase the transmission of HIV through high-risk sexual practices such as having sex without a condom. Methamphetamine has also been linked to poor treatment outcomes and accelerated disease progression of men with HIV.

But compared to other substances such as opioids, methamphetamine has comparatively fewer treatment options and none that have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Rosen said.

While Rosen said there have controlled, clinical trials of some methamphetamine treatments that provide a point-in-time perspective, Rosen said her study is unique in being an observational study that tracks methamphetamine use in the real world over a longer time period.

“What’s really important here is that we’re providing some evidence outside of the very controlled clinical trial setting that substance use treatment may be able to help folks reduce their methamphetamine use,” Rosen said.

Rosen said further research is needed on other factors including the comparative effectiveness of individual treatment methods for methamphetamine use, how the simultaneous use of other substances can impact methamphetamine use of participants and how more frequent reporting of methamphetamine use can affect how frequently participants use methamphetamine.

Article: Association of current substance use treatment with future reduced methamphetamine use in an observational cohort of men who have sex with men in Los Angeles Published Nov. 14, 2023, Rosen et al. Journal of Substance Use and Addiction Treatment, Volume 157, 2024, 209228, ISSN 2949-8759, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.josat.2023.209228

According to a recent study that polled workers in Australia, 45% of workers would be willing to accept a pay cut in exchange for remote work flexibility. Australians are not alone in their quest for a better work-life balance. 56% of 125 million full-time U.S. workers said they don’t have to be in the workplace anymore because they discovered—thanks to the pandemic—that they can do their jobs from home. it’s clear that the pandemic and uncertainty about the future of work have spurred workers to find better opportunities.

Below are some of the latest articles on occupational medicine, workplace culture, and the labor market from the “In the Workplace” channel on Newswise.

Remote work, reduced pay: are we willing to make a trade?

-University of South Australia

Cornell professor says there is evidence weight impacts employment as NYC puts new discrimination law into effect

-Cornell University

Standard inflation measures failing to fully capture cost-of-living pressures for people on lower incomes

-Loughborough University

When Occupational Therapy Becomes Occupational Justice

-Tufts University

Physician burnout reduced with peer support, study finds

-Kaiser Permanente

Business and Society Podcast: The Labor Movement

-University of Michigan Ross School of Business

Analyzing the New Workday Dead Zone: The Power Dynamics and Science of It

-University of Maryland, Robert H. Smith School of Business

Paid family leave boosted postpartum wellbeing, breastfeeding rates

-Northwestern University

UAW, Ford resolution will have ‘ripple effects’ on union work worldwide

-Cornell University

Female board members help improve firms’ corporate sustainability reporting

-University of Portsmouth

Harsh workplace climate is pushing women out of academia

-University of Colorado Boulder

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE           

Contact:  Ilana Nikravesh
                Mount Sinai Press Office
                212-241-9200
                [email protected]

Mount Sinai Creates Research Center Focusing on Opioids, Emerging Substances, and Drug Overdose
Center aims to transform treatment and care for patients in Emergency Departments across the United States

Newswise — (New York, NY – November 28, 2023) – The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai announced today the launch of a new center for “Research on Emerging Substances, Poisoning, and Overdose, for New Discoveries,” to be known as the RESPOND Center. Its research findings could lead to major advances in this area of medicine, including better treatments for patients with drug overdoses in emergency departments across the United States.

“Each day, clinicians on the front lines bear witness to devastating impacts from the current epidemic of substance use and illicit opioid overdose, not just to individuals, but to their families and communities. RESPOND Center researchers are making significant contributions to the field by focusing on the identification of emerging substances, the treatment of addiction as well as nonfatal overdose, and the prevention of adverse events to our patients,” says Alex Manini, MD, MS, the Director of the RESPOND Center, and a Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

“Research is a team sport, and the RESPOND Center focuses on multidisciplinary approaches to problem-solving, bringing together experts from various fields, including toxicology, addiction, psychiatry, pharmacology, emergency medicine, and public health,” Dr. Manini adds. “Through important collaborations with the American College of Medical Toxicology, the Centers for Forensic Science Research Education, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among others, we hope our efforts will result in a significant reduction in overdose-related deaths in the United States.”

More than 100,000 people in the United States died from drug-involved overdoses in 2021, the majority from opioid drugs. In 2022, 3,026 New Yorkers died of a drug overdose, a 12 percent increase from 2021 and the highest number since reporting began in 2000. Fentanyl is one of those deadly opioids, and 25 percent of the fentanyl supply includes xylazine, an animal sedative. This has become a recent, growing threat that is leading to increased rates of addiction and adverse events such as severe skin lesions, hypothermia, and heart and respiratory issues. A subclass of opioid drugs called nitazenes are now emerging in the illicit opioid supply in the United States and are even more potent than fentanyl. According to a recent study in JAMA led by Dr. Manini, nitazenes add a layer of complexity to the dangers of illicit drug use, leading to a significantly increased rate of cardiac arrest in overdose cases and requiring significantly higher doses of naloxone for in-hospital treatment when compared to fentanyl overdoses. The RESPOND Center will prioritize researching these new threats.

This new center will conduct clinical research on a wide range of topics focused on opioids, synthetic opioids, hallucinogens, stimulant drugs including cocaine and methamphetamines, emerging drugs, and health services. Researchers will collect and analyze data from patients across emergency departments within the Mount Sinai Health System to advance knowledge and understanding of overdose, poisonings, and substance use disorders and discover new treatments.

Researchers from the RESPOND Center will draw from $14 million in grants from various institutions including the National Institute on Drug Abuse; the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute; and the National Institute of Mental Health to study non-deadly drug overdose, fentanyl analogues, opioid use disorders, and emergency room patient management. The work of the RESPOND Center also involves collaboration between Mount Sinai’s Department of Emergency Medicine, the Medical Toxicology Division, the Addiction Institute of Mount Sinai, and the American College of Medical Toxicology.

“Through this center, we hope to establish best practices for addressing the needs of patients who are exposed to the continuous flow of new drugs of abuse. We aim to define the unique risks of each of these substances and develop and deploy programs to mitigate these risks in a way that keeps people safe and alive,” says Ethan Cowan, MD, Professor of Emergency Medicine at Icahn Mount Sinai. “Given the severity of the overdose epidemic, this work will be critical to stemming the flow of opioid overdose deaths. The center will also offer mentorship and training for a new generation of emergency medicine researchers who have a passion for improving the care and treatment for our most vulnerable patient populations.”

For more information on the RESPOND Center click on the link below:

https://icahn.mssm.edu/about/departments/emergency-medicine/research/respond-center

About the Mount Sinai Health System

Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with more than 43,000 employees working across eight hospitals, more than 400 outpatient practices, more than 300 labs, a school of nursing, and a leading school of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our time—discovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it. Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care solutions from birth through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients’ medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes approximately 7,400 primary and specialty care physicians; 13 joint-venture outpatient surgery centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and more than 30 affiliated community health centers. Hospitals within the System are consistently ranked by Newsweek’s® “The World’s Best Smart Hospitals, Best in State Hospitals and Best World Hospitals” and by U.S. News & World Report‘s® “Best Hospitals” and “Best Children’s Hospitals.” The Mount Sinai Hospital is on the U.S. News & World Report® “Best Hospitals” Honor Roll for 2023-2024.

For more information, visit https://www.mountsinai.org or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

###