Tag: drug use and abuse
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Health
Study links steroid abuse to key biological, psychological characteristics
A study by researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital sheds new light on anabolic steroid users, augmenting previous research suggesting that users can become dependent on the drugs and showing for…
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Health
Study examines substance abuse prevalence among teens receiving routine medical care
Approximately 15 percent of middle and upper middle class teens receiving routine outpatient medical care in a New England primary care network had positive results on a substance abuse questionnaire,…
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Campus & Community
Dietary supplements can cause harmful reactions with prescription medicines
More than one of every five people who take prescription drugs also use dietary supplements, like ginseng and gingko, without telling their doctors. Such combinations may lead to harmful results,…
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Health
Nicotine vaccine to be tested at Massachusetts General Hospital
A novel approach to helping smokers kick the habit – a vaccine – will be tested at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). The nicotine vaccine NicVax is designed to keep nicotine…
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Health
New combination of treatments is effective for alcohol dependence
McLean Hospital researchers, along with colleagues from 11 other study sites nationwide, report that the medication naltrexone and up to 20 sessions of alcohol counseling delivered by a behavioral specialist…
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Health
Study: No psychological or cognitive deficits from peyote
Researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital report that Native Americans who use the hallucinogen peyote regularly in connection with religious ceremonies show no evidence of brain damage or psychological problems. In…
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Health
Critical step traced in anthrax infection
An anthrax bacterium secretes three nontoxic proteins that assemble into a toxic complex on the surface of the host cell to set off a chain of events leading to cell…
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Health
Blood vessel drugs halt cancer growth
After decades of surviving peer rejection of his theory of cancer treatment by blocking tiny blood vessels, Judah Folkman has gone on to develop drugs that did what he predicted…
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Campus & Community
Kudzu cuts alcohol consumption
Scott Lukas, professor of psychiatry at McLean, a psychiatric hospital affiliated with Harvard Medical School, says these results inspired his team to test on humans. The study was conducted on…
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Health
Drug combination boosts survival rate in head and neck cancers
Previous studies have shown that using combination chemotherapy of cisplatin and 5-fu yields a 25 to 50 percent rate of complete pathological responses (the tumor disappeared). Robert Haddad, M.D., and…
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Health
Safer cigarettes would cut fire deaths if made available
Researchers at Harvard School of Public Health, funded by the American Legacy Foundation, compared the physical properties of cigarettes sold in New York with cigarettes of the same brands sold…
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Health
One alcoholic drink per day improves cognitive function among older women
According to the study’s senior author, BWH’s Francine Grodstein, Sc.D., “Much evidence has demonstrated the heart benefits of light alcohol drinking, but less research has focused on cognitive functioning. While…
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Health
Study finds heavy drinking linked to higher stroke risk
A study found that while light and moderate drinkers appear to be at neither greater risk nor greater advantage than abstainers when it comes to ischemic stroke, the frequency of…
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Science & Tech
Method automates capture of cell image data
A new type of drug profiling will be useful in identifying the biological targets of experimental compounds and predicting drug toxicity. “This work brings microscopy into the ‘omics’ era,” said…
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Health
Drug-coated stents don’t save money but are reasonably cost-effective, study shows
Treatment with the Cypher sirolimus-coated stent, developed by Johnson & Johnson’s Cordis division, cost approximately $2,900 more per patient compared to the use of bare metal stents. The drug is…
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Health
Ritalin use in childhood may increase depression
A study, led by McLean Hospital’s William Carlezon and Susan Andersen, found that adult rats given Ritalin as juveniles behaved differently than their placebo-treated counterparts in a host of tests…
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Health
Smoking increases bleeding into the brain, study finds
A research team at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) found that stroke risk for women increased proportionately with the number of cigarettes smoked each day. In contrast, women who stopped…
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Health
Stricter alcohol policy enforcement may curb college drinking
A study consisted of 11 public schools, including three state university campuses and eight state colleges that fall under the purview of the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education (MBHE). In…
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Health
Tobacco deaths a developing problem
Research published in the Sept. 13, 2003 issue of the medical journal The Lancet shows that global tobacco deaths were about 4.8 million in 2000, with about 2.4 million each…
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Health
Combination therapy shows promise for delaying progression of Lou Gehrig’s disease
In a study, researchers reported that the combination of minocycline and creatine resulted in additive neuroprotection in the case of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. After…
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Health
Hundreds of thousands with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis could be saved
A study has provided the first hard evidence that outpatient community care in poor, urban shantytowns can work for the most difficult to treat form of tuberculosis. The multidrug-resistant tuberculosis…
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Health
Study finds frequent consumption of alcohol linked to lower risk of heart attack in men
Men who drank moderate amounts of alcoholic beverages three or more times a week had a risk of myocardial infarction 30 to 35 percent lower than nondrinkers. The observational study,…
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Health
Experimental drug shows promise in treating severe, often-lethal complication of stem cell transplants
An experimental drug called defibrotide reversed severe veno-occlusive disease (VOD) of the liver in more than one third of the stem cell transplant recipients enrolled in a study. VOD is…
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Science & Tech
Direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs grows rapidly
In the first analysis of patterns of direct-to-consumer advertising before and after 1997 guidelines issued by the Food and Drug Administration, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard…
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Health
Study reveals how child abuse can lead to substance abuse
It’s a common-sense notion that those who have been abused as children may became drug abusers later in life. But why is this so? Carl Anderson, a Harvard instructor in…
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Health
Lithium drugs found to reduce suicide risk
Researchers who wondered about the effectiveness of lithium drugs in treating patients with severe depression analyzed 22 studies involving 5,647 patients. The scientists, working at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital in Belmont,…
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Health
Early exposure to Ritalin may blunt desire for cocaine later in life
There are several controversies surrounding the use of Ritalin, or methylphenidate, a stimulant prescribed for children who have an abnormally high level of activity or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).…