According to a recent Science Daily release, there is an association between sleep problems and alcohol abuse. For those teens who have difficulty sleeping, this can predict the onset of a problem with alcohol abuse when they are healthy adults or a relapse in abstinent alcoholics.

Puberty doesn’t tend to help the situation, either. A new study out of the University Nijmegen examines the associations among pubertal development, sleep problems and alcohol use in early adolescence. The study found that puberty is related to sleep problems and later bedtimes, which are in turn associated with the use of alcohol.

Sara Pieters, a doctoral student and corresponding author for the study, noted that the timing of puberty has been found to predict adolescent use of alcohol. Adolescents who mature early are more likely to drink.

Carmen Van Der Zwaluw, a doctoral student in neuropsychology at the University Nijmegen added that adolescents who experience problems with sleep have a tendency to use more alcohol than those without difficulties with sleep.

The results of this study indicated that puberty had a direct relationship with sleep problems and more evening-type tendencies, including later bedtimes, which positively related to early adolescent alcohol use. This tended to be true regardless of gender, underlying psychopathology and educational level.

Researchers advise clinicians to apply better screening for sleep problems when adolescents seem to have other psychological or behavioral problems. Parents should monitor adolescent sleep and keep in mind the effect it has on the overall healthy lifestyle.
 

Scientists are constantly striving to understand the different brain responses to alcohol. One area that has recently been examined is how preference conditioning influences healthy individuals while intoxicated. Iris M. Balodis led a group of researchers from the Department of Psychology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario in Canada.

The researchers examined the Conditioned Pattern Preference task in individuals under the influence of alcohol. The research team had previously studied the effects of alcohol on CPP, and had not discovered a relationship between CPP and alcohol. However, the authors wanted to better understand the relationship if there was prior drug use that may impact the conditioning scores.

To test the impact of prior drug use on the relationship between CPP and alcohol, the researchers looked at self-reported alcohol use and preference conditioning in the CPP task. The participants were asked to count the cues that appeared in difference locations on the computer monitor. This was done to measure working memory.

The participants, 69 female and 23 male undergraduate students, also completed the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test and the Rutgers Alcohol Problem Index to measure their levels of drinking.

The results of the study show that there was an association between self-reported binge drinking and preference conditioning. Individuals who scored higher on the alcohol use disorder scales tended to have an increased preference for reward-paired cues. The study also found that hazardous drinking did not cause any impairment in working memory when completing the CPP task.

The findings of this study show support for evidence that a history of drug use may sensitize neural pathways that mediate conditioned reward. It may also indicate a neurocognitive disposition connecting substance misuse and interpretations of reward-paired stimuli.
The study found that the relationship between binge drinking and conditioned reward did not impact any cognitive functions. Working memory, for example, was not impacted by the association between binge drinking and conditioned reward.
The findings of this study will be an important step to understanding the way that the brain functions under the influence of alcohol. While working memory and other cognitive functions were not impacted, there is now a better understanding of how the brain responds to conditioning after an individual consumes large amounts of alcohol.
 

While alcohol and tobacco disorders can cause more immediate problems in decision-making, research has not established whether cognition is affected in the individual as they age. A recent study by Caspers, Arndt, Yucuis, McKirgan and Spinks looks at the effects of alcohol and cigarette use disorders on measures of cognition in individuals of middle age.

The researchers wanted to look at how alcohol- and tobacco-use disorders affected global and specific cognitive capacity in middle age.

Participants in the study ranged in age from 31 to 60 years old, and there were 118 men and 169 women. A semistructured interview was conducted to determine each participant’s lifetime diagnoses, and to collect information about current usage of alcohol and cigarettes.

The researchers also administered a comprehensive neurocognitive assessment that determined global cognition, memory and executive functioning abilities. The Iowa Test of Basic Skills was employed to examine baseline cognition, based on tests administered from third through eighth grade.

The study used repeated-measures analysis of variance. Covariates included baseline cognition, current depression symptoms, and medication use.

The results of the study show that cognition in men is not significantly affected by lifetime alcohol- and tobacco-use disorders. Women who are diagnosed with tobacco dependence using the DSM-IV measures were less successful on measures of global cognition and executive functioning.

Women also showed a higher working memory when diagnosed with lifetime alcohol abuse or dependence, based on DSM-IV criteria. Men did not show the same association.
The results of the study indicate that there may be few negative effects of alcohol-use disorders on cognition in middle age. The effects may be especially subtle if current alcohol use is minimal.
The study did show some lasting effects of tobacco use on the ability of women in middle age. An association was shown between tobacco use and lower scores in the areas of visualspatial abilities, processing speed and executive functioning abilities.
While many effects of alcohol and tobacco abuse are dangerous both physically and psychologically, it appears that the effects on cognitive abilities in middle age may not be as severe as expected.
 

Alcohol can affect several areas of the brain’s functioning. When it comes to things like tension reduction and aggression, are older adults just more aware of the effects, or are they affected differently by alcohol consumption and are therefore impacted in their decisions about alcohol?

A recent study by Pabst, Baumeister and Kraus (2010) sought to understand these relationships and how they are impacted by age. The purpose of their study was to examine the cross-sectional relationship between alcohol-expectancy dimensions and alcohol consumption. They also wanted to examine whether the relationship was modified by age.

Data was collected from the 2003 German Epidemiological Survey on Substance Abuse. There were 6,099 participants that were all aged between 18 and 59 years. The Comprehensive Alcohol Expectancy Questionnaire was employed to assess alcohol expectancies.

There were five dimensions examined by the questionnaire: social assertiveness, tension reduction, sexual enhancement, cognitive impairment, and aggression. Alcohol consumption was measured by the number of drinking days of the participants and the beverage-specific quantity-frequency measure.

The results of the study indicate that all of the expectancy dimensions except sexual enhancement were related to alcohol consumption. The study also showed that there were age differences between three of the expectancy dimensions and alcohol consumption.

The connection between social assertiveness and sexual enhancement with drinking frequency, as well as with the average daily intake of alcohol, was stronger for younger adults. Respondents aged 30 years and older showed a lower connection between these expectancies.

In addition, older adults with high expectations of cognitive impairment connected with alcohol consumption reported that they drank lower amounts of alcohol compared with their younger counterparts who reported the same level of expectation.

Additional research may be needed to examine the dimensions more fully with multidimensional alcohol-expectancy instruments. This would provide more information than the measurement of only positive and negative alcohol expectancies reported here.

The findings of this study provide important information for those coordinating programs for prevention and education of alcohol abuse. This study indicates that age modifies the relationship between alcohol-expectancy dimensions and drinking.

While it is generally acknowledged that younger adults are more likely to participate in alcohol consumption and experience altered behaviors, research like this study is making it easier to understand how age plays a part in alcohol consumption and why.

Only breast cancer has been extensively studied to determine how factors such as alcohol intake affect cancer risk. Recently the Million Women Study was conducted by Allen, Beral, Casabonne, Kan, Reeves, Brown and Green of the Cancer Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford.

The Million Women Study enrolled 1,280,296 women in the United Kingdom, and these women were routinely followed for incident cancer. Cox regression models were used to estimate cancer risks associated with alcohol consumption. Adjustments were made for other risk factors.

A quarter of the women reported that they drank no alcohol. 98 percent of the drinkers reported drinking fewer than 21 drinks per week, with drinkers on average consuming one drink per day.

The follow-up period averaged 7.2 years after the initial questionnaire, and 68,775 invasive cancers were reported.

Moderate alcohol consumption in women was associated with an increased risk of cancers in the oral cavity and pharynx, esophagus, larynx, rectum, breast, and liver. It was associated with a decreased risk for thyroid cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and renal cell carcinoma.

When types of alcohol consumed were considered, it was found that there was no difference between the results of those who drank only wine and other consumers of alcohol.

The results of the study indicate that moderate alcohol consumption increases the overall risk of cancer. Each additional drink consumed per day on a regular basis may account for approximately 15 additional cancers per 1000 women (up to age 75 in developed countries).

Breast cancer was the cancer most associated with elevated risk due to moderate drinking. For every additional drink regularly consumed per day, the increase in incidence up to age 75 per 1000 women in developed countries is estimated to be 11 for breast cancer.

One limitation of the study is that the researchers were not able to address the risk of heavy sustained drinking.

The information provided by the Million Women Study is important for women assessing their cancer risk factors. Making choices about alcohol consumption and how it affects overall health is greatly impacted by this study. While some types cancer risk were found to be lowered by alcohol consumption, the overall risk for cancer went up with moderate drinking.