Tag Archive for 'alcohol'

Study finds that teen use of pot and alcohol is increasing

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Jana
on March 2, 2010
in Health and Wellness
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3917056433_2940ff8494After ten years of declining, a new study has found that alcohol and marijuana use is on the rise. Sean Clarkin, director of strategy at The Partnership for a Drug-Free America, said that we have learned from the past that you usually see an increase in recreational drugs first and the harder stuff usually follows.

The  survey, which is done yearly, discovered that the amount of teens in grades 9 through 12 who said they drank alcohol in the past month rose 11 percent in the past year; with 39 percent reporting alcohol use, which is about 6.5 million teens.

Pot use among teens is up 19 percent. About 25 percent of teens said they smoked marijuana in the last month.

Until recently, these numbers for pot and alcohol use had been on a steady decline since 1998. At this time, use lingered around 50 percent for teens using alcohol and 27 percent for teens using pot.

In addition, the new study unfortunately discovered that teens using the party drug Ecstasy is on the rise. Six percent of teens interviewed admitted that they used Ecstasy in the last month, compared with 4 percent in 2008.

Clarkin said that if parents do suspect their teen might be using, they need to act swiftly. Try to watch them closely, talk to them about the danger of drugs, set rules and if necessary, and get outside help such as a counselor, doctor, clergy or other resource.

During the study researchers asked the teens how they felt about doing drugs or about the friends who did them. It was found that a higher percentage of teens than the last year said that they like being high and more friends said they had friends who often got high at parties. Also, less teens admitted that they would not hang out with kids who smoked pot.

MetLife Foundation sponsored the partnership’s “attitude tracking” study. Researchers in the study surveyed 3,287 teens in grades 9 through 12. Data was drawn from surveys that the teens completed from March to June 2009. The study has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.

The New York-based partnership is a nonprofit group that works to decrease illicit drug use.

Alcohol may raise risk for some cancers

Published
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Jana
on March 2, 2009
in Health and Wellness
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A study was done involving about 1.3 million British women that provided even additional proof that moderate drinking can raise the risk for a few cancers.

At breast cancer screening clinics, British researchers questioned middle-aged women about their drinking habits and observed their health for seven years.

One-fourth of the women said they did not drink at all. Almost all the others said that they drank less than three drinks a day, and the average had one drink a day. The lightest drinkers were compared with people who drank heavily.

On February 24, University of Oxford researchers reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute that for every extra drink each day, there is an increased risk of breast, rectal and liver cancer. In this study, it did not matter what kind of alcohol was consumed. In earlier research, consuming alcohol was associated with esophageal and oral cancers only when smokers drank.

However, moderate drinkers in reality had a smaller risk of thyroid cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and renal cell cancer. The alcohol risk is minor for the average woman. About 118 out of every 1,000 women form any of these cancers in prosperous countries, but the study found that every added daily alcoholic drink affixed 11 breast cancers and four of the other types to that rate. The researchers deduced that 13 percent of those cancers in Britain can be blamed on alcohol.

So what is safe now? Well, moderate alcohol use has been believed to be heart healthy for a long time, although the new research doesn’t discuss it. This encourages more debate about what levels are safe. It is already established that U.S. health guidelines suggest that women should consume no more than a drink a day; two drinks per day are suggested for men, because they metabolize alcohol differently.

Because of all this, officials have been concerned about giving the wrong message – giving young people, pregnant women and those vulnerable to alcoholism – the green light to drink alcohol. It has been difficult for them to balance the declaration of the benefits of alcohol without influencing people to begin drinking or abusing it.

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