Sports News: Drinking

Friday, 12 July 2013

Smoking Combined With Heavy Drinking Speeds Up Cognitive Decline

Main Category: Smoking / Quit Smoking
Also Included In: Alcohol / Addiction / Illegal Drugs; Psychology / Psychiatry
Article Date: 12 Jul 2013 - 1:00 PDT Current ratings for:
Smoking Combined With Heavy Drinking Speeds Up Cognitive Decline
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The combination of smoking and heavy drinking speeds up cognitive decline, according to new research published in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

Researchers from UCL (University College London) found that smokers who drank alcohol heavily had a 36% faster cognitive decline compared to non-smoking moderate drinkers.

Smoking and heavier alcohol consumption often co-occur, and their combined effect on cognition may be larger than the sum of their individual effects. The research team assessed 6,473 adults (4,635 men and 1,838 women) aged between 45 and 69 years old over a 10-year period. The adults were part of the Whitehall II cohort study of British civil servants.

All the participants were asked about their cigarette and alcohol consumption, and their cognitive function (including verbal and mathematical reasoning, short-term verbal memory and verbal fluency) was then assessed three times over 10 years.

The research team found that in current smokers who were also heavy drinkers, cognitive decline was 36% faster than in non-smoking moderate drinkers. This was equivalent to an age effect of 12 years - an additional two years over the 10-year follow up period. Among smokers, cognitive decline was found to be faster as the number of alcohol units consumed increased.

Lead researcher Dr Gareth Hagger-Johnson said: "Our research shows that cognitive decline was 36% faster in those people who reported both cigarette smoking and drinking alcohol above the recommended limits (14 units per week for women, 21 units per week for men). When we looked at people who were heavy-drinking smokers, we found that for every 10 years that they aged their brains aged the equivalent of 12 years."

"From a public health perspective, the increasing burden associated with cognitive aging could be reduced if lifestyle factors can be modified, and we believe that people should not drink alcohol more heavily in the belief that alcohol is a protective factor against cognitive decline. Current advice is that smokers should stop or cut down, and people should avoid heavy alcohol drinking. Our study suggests that people should also be advised not to combine these two unhealthy behaviours - particularly from mid-life onwards. Healthy behaviours in midlife may prevent cognitive decline into early old age."

Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release. Click 'references' tab above for source.
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Enforcement Of School Policies Reduces Student Drinking

Main Category: Alcohol / Addiction / Illegal Drugs
Also Included In: Pediatrics / Children's Health
Article Date: 12 Jul 2013 - 0:00 PDT Current ratings for:
Enforcement Of School Policies Reduces Student Drinking
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"Just say no" has been many a parent's mantra when it comes to talking to their children about drugs or alcohol. Schools echo that with specific policies against illicit use on school grounds. But do those school policies work?

University of Washington professor of social work Richard Catalano and colleagues studied whether anti-alcohol policies in public and private schools in Washington state and Australia's Victoria state were effective for eighth- and ninth-graders.

What they found was that each school's particular policy mattered less than the students' perceived enforcement of it. So, even if a school had a suspension or expulsion policy, if students felt the school didn't enforce it then they were more likely to drink on campus. But, even if a school's policy was less harsh - such as requiring counseling - students were less likely to drink at school if they believed school officials would enforce it.

"Whatever your school policy is, lax enforcement is related to more drinking," Catalano said.

The study was published recently in the journal Health Education Research.

The results were similar in Washington, where the legal drinking age is 21 and schools tend to have a zero-tolerance approach, and Victoria, Australia, where the legal drinking age is 18 and policies are more about minimizing harm.

In the study, 44 percent of Victoria eighth-graders and 22 percent of Washington eighth-graders reported drinking alcohol. Victoria students also reported higher rates of binge drinking and alcohol-related harms.

Apart from perceptions about enforcement, harmful behaviors in both states were reduced when students believed policy violators would likely be counseled by a teacher on the dangers of alcohol use, rather than expelled or suspended.

"Schools should focus on zero tolerance and abstinence in primary and early middle school, but sometime between middle school and high school they have to blend in zero tolerance with harm minimization," said Catalano, director of the Social Development Research Group at the UW School of Social Work and principal investigator for the International Youth Development Study. "By the time they get into high school they need new strategies."

Those strategies could include talking to a teacher or being referred to treatment. The likelihood of binge drinking was reduced if students received an abstinence alcohol message or a harm minimization message, and if they believed teachers would talk to them about the dangers of alcohol. Catalano said such remediation policies are an important predictor of less alcohol use among ninth-graders.

He said the study shows harsh punishment for drinking on school grounds, such as calling the police or expelling the student, doesn't inhibit alcohol use on campus. Instead, long-term negative impacts of expulsion mean students feel disconnected from school and may subsequently drink more. Calling the police, which gives the student a police record, appears to make things even worse.

"What we've seen in other studies from this sample is suspension policies actually worsen the behavior problem," Catalano said. "What that says to me is, although you want policies and you want enforcement of policies, there are other ways of responding than suspension, expulsion and calling the police: Getting a student to talk to a teacher about how alcohol might be harmful, or a session with the school counselor."

Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release. Click 'references' tab above for source.
Visit our alcohol / addiction / illegal drugs section for the latest news on this subject.

By Doree Armstrong

The study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse, and Victorian Government’s Operational Infrastructure Support Program. Co-authors are Todd Herrenkohl of the UW, lead author Tracy Evans-Whipp and Stephanie Plenty of Royal Children’s Hospital in Victoria, Australia, and John Toumbourou of Deakin University in Australia.

University of Washington

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