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"Telomeres, the protein caps on the ends of human chromosomes , are markers of aging and overall health," said Naruhisa Yamaki, M.D., a clinical fellow at the Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine. Yamaki explained that every time a cell replicates, a tiny bit of telomere is lost, so they get shorter with age. But some groups may have shorter telomeres for reasons other than aging. "Our study showed that alcoholic patients have a shortened telomere length, which means that heavy drinking causes biological aging at a cellular level," he said. "It is alcohol rather than acetaldehyde that is associated with a shortened telomere length." Yamaki will present this research at the RSA meeting on June 25. Yamaki and his co-authors recruited 255 study participants from alcoholism treatment services at Kurihama National Hospital in Yokosuka, Japan: 134 alcoholic patients and 121 age-matched controls or non-alcoholics, ranging in age from 41 to 85 year...

Describing a typical smoker as smelly, inconsiderate and lacking self-control, many who use e-cigarettes -- also known as vaping -- while continuing to smoke traditional cigarettes are likely to try to distance themselves from a group they regard negatively, the research found. One participant commented that he would be offended if labelled a smoker and another said he regarded himself as a vaper because it was more socially acceptable -- despite both participants still smoking traditional cigarettes. Dr Tushna Vandrevala, an expert in Health Psychology and Senior Lecturer at London's Kingston University who co-wrote the report, said there was limited evidence about why, despite being promoted as a means of smoking cessation, the use of e-cigarettes did not always help smokers to kick the habit. "Our study suggests this may be linked to identity," Dr Vandrevala said. "People who exclusively smoke cigarettes and wish to dissociate themselves from the negative s...

The article, which is entitled "Landscape of innovation for cardiovascular pharmaceuticals : from basic science to new molecular entities" and appears in the journal  Clinical Therapeutics , tracked the development of 168 drugs currently approved for cardiovascular disease and 178 candidate drugs currently in development along with the maturation of the basic research underlying these products. These results show that the median time from the initiation of research on new drug targets to first approval of a drug based on this research was greater than 40 years, with the time required for maturation of this research contributing the most to the delay in emergence of new products. "Our analysis shows that there are promising new therapies for cardiovascular disease in the pipeline, but that these therapies only begin to emerge when the underlying science is mature." Said Dr. Jennifer Beierlein, lead author of this research. "The best way to speed drug deve...

"This study was driven by two motivations -- the need to understand if and how the shifting legal landscape of cannabis may affect kids, and the potential utility of social media as an epidemiological sampling method," says Jacob Borodovsky, a PhD candidate at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice and the Center for Technology and Behavioral Health, and the lead author of the study. "If it is true that certain components of legalization change the way young people use cannabis, then we need to devote more resources to understanding the important consequences (good or bad) of the specific provisions included in the diverse cannabis laws that are emerging across the country." Borodovsky and colleagues examined associations between provisions of legal cannabis laws (such as allowing dispensaries, home cultivation, etc.) and cannabis consumption patterns among youth using online surveys distributed through Facebook, which proved to be a r...

University of Iowa researchers studying the infralimbic cortex -- a region of the brain that controls addictive behavior -- performed a series of experiments in which rats were given cocaine, then taken off the drug. The scientists found that, generally speaking, this region of the brain can be reprogrammed to ease the rats' cocaine urges. The finding could help users kick the habit with the help of drugs that target the infralimbic cortex -- or with improved behavioral treatment for substance addiction and relapse, according to Andrea Gutman, a postdoctoral researcher in the UI Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and corresponding author on the paper, published in the  Journal of Neuroscience . The infralimbic cortex, a part of the prefrontal cortex located toward the front of the head, is responsible for forming habits and regulating behavior. Think of it as a mental green light or a check on destructive or embarrassing tendencies. Researchers already knew abou...

Randy D. Blakely, Ph.D., government director of Florida Atlantic College's Mind Institute and a professor of biomedical science in FAU's Charles E. Schmidt Faculty of Medication. Credit score: Florida Atlantic College As soon as a hip drug of the '70s and '80s occasion scene, cocaine just isn't solely making a comeback, it is proving its endurance because of its potent attract. Actually, Drug Enforcement Administration officers say that traffickers are producing extra cocaine now than on the peak of the infamous period of the "cocaine cowboys" within the 1980s. In response to Florida's Medical Examiner Fee, overdose deaths from cocaine are at their highest stage within the state since 2007. From 2012 to 2015, cocaine deaths in Florida elevated from 1,318 fatalities to 1,834 fatalities. Solely fentanyl, a strong artificial painkiller, surpassed deaths from cocaine overdose in Florida. Nationally, grea...