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303 Results for search "Drug Abuse".

Health News Results - 303

Drug overdose deaths in the United States continue to climb, but at a slower pace, federal health officials reported Wednesday.

Early data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that nearly 108,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2021.

"Drug overdose deaths are s...

Could giving surgery patients ready-to-use mailed disposal kits for unused opioids lower the risk of abuse of the drugs?

Yes, claims a new study that found patients with unused opioid pain pills are much more likely to d...

Ohio State University is warning students to be wary of fake Adderall pills after two students died last week.

University officials said that Columbus Public Health has warned the community about the counterfeit Adderall, which contain the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl and are fueling increases in overdoses and hospitalizations in the area.

"Be aware of the possibility of unexpec...

Folks who struggle with depression and substance use disorders often tend to be smokers, but a new study finds that smoking rates among these vulnerable Americans have fallen significantly.

"This study shows us that at a population-level,...

People with substance abuse disorders, depression and other mental health conditions may be at higher risk for COVID-19 -- even when they are fully vaccinated, new research suggests.

"Individuals with psychiatric disorders, and especially older adults with psychiatric disorders, may be particularly vulnerable to breakthrough infections," said study author Kristen Nishimi, a postdoctoral f...

Drug overdose deaths among America's teens have skyrocketed during the pandemic, and not because drug use is more common, researchers report.

In 2020, overdose deaths among adolescents nearly doubled, compared with 10 years before the pandemic. They rose another 20% in the first six months of 2021, a new study finds.

"Teen drug use rates are at historic lows, so this is really becau...

Does youthful experimentation with drugs and alcohol always fade with age? Not necessarily, a long-term study warns.

Researchers found that more than 60% of teens who report heavy use of alcohol, marijuana, and/or other drugs continue to have a drug problem as adults, often involving misuse of p...

Dovetailing with a surge in overdose deaths, the United States has seen a sharp rise in seizures of illicit fentanyl, according to a new report.

Law enforcement seizures of pills containing illicit fen...

Even though medication is considered the most effective therapy for opioid addiction, many Americans who need it don't receive it, a new study finds.

"Evidence supporting the effectiveness of medication for opioid use disorder - such as methadone, buprenorphine or naltrexone - is unequivocal, but most people who needed [opioid addiction] treatment in the U.S. did not receive this gold sta...

Medical marijuana could be a viable alternative to opioid painkillers for people dealing with arthritis or chronic back pain, two new studies show.

Many patients prescribed opioids for their chronic pain wound up taking fewer painkillers -- or stopping them altogether -- after doctors ce...

The party drug "ecstasy" might be the key to helping people heal from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), new clinical trial results indicate.

In a small study, PTSD patients treated with a powerful combination of the psychedelic drug, also known as MDMA, and talk therapy were much more likely to...

Using medical marijuana to treat pain, anxiety or depression may quickly lead to dependence, without relieving symptoms, a new study suggests.

Those most at risk for misusing medical marijuana are patients using it to treat anxiety and depression, the researchers found. Based on these findings, the b...

Taken correctly, prescription drugs used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can help teens and young adults navigate their condition, but a new study finds many are dying from overdosing on these medications.

In 2019,

Settlements totaling $26 billion have been finalized between drugmaker Johnson & Johnson plus three major pharmaceutical distributors and state and local governments, over the companies' role in America's opioid crisis.

The

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  • February 28, 2022
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  • Extreme heat from climate change is making it harder for people with mental illness and drug addiction to cope and adding to pressure on pandemic-stretched U.S. emergency rooms.

    During these severe summer temperature spikes, Americans with depression, anxiety, mood disorders and drug addiction are increasingly flocking to hospital ERs for help, a

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  • February 24, 2022
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  • The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued another pointed warning about the dangers posed by tianeptine, an antidepressant that is not approved for any type of medical treatment in the United States.

    Topping the list of possible risks from ta...

    Microdosing has become trendy in the era of drug legalization, with TV shows like "Nine Perfect Strangers" promoting the potential positives of regularly taking tiny amounts of psychedelics.

    But a new study finds that short-term microdosing of one hippy-era psychedelic, LSD, doesn't appear to cause any lasting or dramatic improvements to a person's disposition or brainpower, researchers r...

    Millions of American adults take a potentially deadly duo of prescription opioid painkillers and sedatives at the same time, researchers warn.

    The side effects of concurrent use of opioids and sedatives such as

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  • February 23, 2022
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  • If they quit early on, there's a good chance that teenage drug abusers can still succeed in life, researchers say.

    The findings show the importance of stopping drug use by early adulthood in order to protect future health and well-being, according to Jake Najman, a professor at the University of Queensland in Australia, and co-author of a new study.

    "Adolescent behavior proble...

    The wealthy Sackler family upped its cash offer to settle thousands of opioid-related lawsuits against the family and their company, Purdue Pharma.

    Instead of paying out $4.5 billion, the company is now offering $6 billion to settle the slew of lawsuits.

    But the family still wants all civil claims against them related to Purdue and opioids ended, and a ban on future such claims, acc...

    Potent and poisonous, the synthetic opioid known as fentanyl has infiltrated nearly every corner of the U.S. illegal street drug market, experts warn.

    In the process, it's killing addicts and recreational "party drug" users alike.

    "This is the time of fentanyl, a drug that's 50 to 100 times more powerful than mo...

    Young people with autism or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have a higher risk of dying early from a range of causes, a new research review suggests.

    Researchers found that before middle-age, people with autism face higher-than-average rates of death from both "natural" causes, like heart disease, and "unnatural" ones, including accidents and suicide.

    Meanwhile, unna...

    Amphetamines can pull people into a vicious cycle of addiction, but new research now shows that people who abuse these stimulants are also five times more likely to develop psychosis than non-users.

    The effect of "speed" on neurotransmitter signaling in the brain often causes psychosis symptoms such as paranoia, voices and hallucinations. These typically resolve after a few days, but may ...

    The U.S. drug epidemic continues its death march, with new research showing American teens and young adults have lost nearly 1.5 million years of life due to drug overdose deaths in recent years.

    For the study, the researchers examined years of life lost -- the difference between a person's e...

    The opioid addict you know might not be the college kid who has always dabbled in alcohol and drugs.

    It could be your grandparent.

    Opioid misuse doesn't discriminate by age -- and rates are rising steadily among adults aged 55 and up, new research shows.

    "You can still use recrea...

    A program meant to encourage the use of a drug that can help people overcome opioid addiction led to dramatic increases in its use in emergency rooms, researchers report.

    Buprenorphine is a medication that stabilizes opioid withdrawal and soothes cravi...

    At least 59 overdoses were prevented in the first three weeks that two overdose prevention centers have been open in New York City, the city's health department said Tuesday.

    During that time, there were more than 2,000 visits to the centers that are operated by OnPoint NYC and are the first publicly recognized overdose prevention sites to open in the United States. The city first

    Pandemic lockdowns may have led fewer Americans to seek pain treatment last year, but folks who did seek help had higher-than-usual odds of receiving dangerous opioid painkillers, a new study says.

    And that could lead to a worsening of the opioid epidemic, researchers suggest.

    "It is likely that more patients may have become addicted to opioids than would have been the case absent t...

    People who are prescribed opioid painkillers after receiving a heart pacemaker or defibrillator may be at risk for opioid abuse -- and the higher the initial dose, the greater the risk, according to a new study.

    “The significance of this study is to make other electrophysiologists aware that even a low-risk procedure like a pacemaker or a defibrillator can lead to chronic opioid use and...

    A wearable device that could inject a lifesaving antidote for an opioid overdose might be on the horizon.

    A new study shows that the device, worn on the stomach like an insulin pump, can detect when someone stops breathing from an overdose and inject the drug naloxone to restore breathing.

    "Fatal drug overdoses in the United States are at an all-time high, and opioid overdoses accou...

    New government data confirms what many have suspected: The pandemic has prompted a record number of drug overdose deaths, with more than 100,000 Americans succumbing to addiction as COVID-19 raged across the country.

    That figure is almost 30% higher than the previous year, when 78,000 overdose deaths were reported, according to provisional figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control...

    As if suffering through a childhood trauma weren't enough, new research suggests it might raise the risk of poor mental and physical health later in life.

    Researchers analyzed nearly 2,900 responses to the 2019 New Zealand Family Violence Survey and found that about 45% of respondents said they had no adverse childhood events, a majority experienced at least one, and one-third reported mo...

    A previous court ruling that ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay Oklahoma $465 million for the company's role in the opioid epidemic was tossed out by the state's highest court on Tuesday.

    In a 5-1 vote, the Oklahoma Supreme Court rejected the state's argument that Johnson & Johnson violated "public nuisance" laws by overstating the benefits of its prescription opioid painkillers and minimiz...

    A California judge has ruled against local governments that sued drug companies for billions of dollars to recover their costs of dealing with the opioid epidemic.

    In a tentative ruling issued Monday, Orange County Superior Court Judge Peter Wilson rejected the plaintiffs' claims the companies used deceptive marketing to increase unnecessary prescriptions of opioid painkillers, the As...

    Teenagers have followed the vaping trend into marijuana use, with recent studies chronicling a boom in pot vaping among adolescents in the United States and Canada, researchers report.

    The percentage of teens who've experimented with vaped pot has more than doubled in recent years, and vaping among frequent marijuana users has quadrupled, according to the study.

    Currently about 1 in...

    Researchers may be one step closer to developing the equivalent of a Breathalyzer for detecting marijuana use.

    In an early study, scientists found that their rapid test was able to reliably detect THC in people's saliva in under 5 minutes. THC, short for tetrahydrocannabinol, is the active ingredient in marijuana.

    Right now, the "gold standard" for detecting marijuana use is to meas...

    Drug overdose deaths in the United States hit a new record for the 12-month period ending March 2021, new government data shows.

    A record high 96,779 drug overdose deaths occurred between March 2020 and March 2021, representing a 29.6% rise, new statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics found. The numbers are provisional, ...

    The coronavirus pandemic forced a significant shift to telemedicine treatment for addiction, but it's not clear whether that approach is better than in-person care, a new study finds.

    Before the pandemic, addiction treatment services in the United States had many restrictions on telemedicine use, so only about 27% of addiction facilities offered telehealth services, while telehealth was u...

    Drug and alcohol abuse increase the risk of breakthrough COVID-19 infection as well as severe illness and death among fully vaccinated people, a new study shows.

    "First and foremost, vaccination is highly effective for people with substance use disorders, and the overall risk of COVID-19 among vaccinated people with substance use disorders is very low," study co-author Dr. Nora Volkow, di...

    The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken up the U.S. opioid crisis in ways bad and good, increasing the risk of use and overdose but also spurring innovative approaches to treatment.

    The pandemic has definitely been linked to an increase in opioid use and overdose deaths, Tufts University's Thomas Stopka said during a HealthDay Now video interview.

    "We've been seeing increases in o...

    Deaths from methamphetamine overdoses in the United States nearly tripled between 2015 and 2019, health officials report in a new study.

    While the number of methamphetamine users did not increase as steeply, researchers said frequent use of methamphetamine, and using other drugs at the same time, may have contributed to the increase in overdose deaths. Meth users have also become more div...

    An animal tranquilizer, xylazine, is increasingly linked to drug overdose deaths across the United States, health officials say.

    According to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, xylazine has turned up in overdose deaths in 25 of 38 states examined. In 2019, xylazine contributed to death in 64% of cases and almost always also involved fentanyl.

    The ...

    Hospitalized opioid addicts die at a rate similar to people who have a heart attack after leaving the hospital.

    Nearly 8% of patients addicted to opioids died within 12 months of hospital discharge, according to researchers from Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU).

    "We need systems that can address comprehensive needs of people with substance use disorder and serious medical i...

    The number of U.S. infants born with syphilis is climbing at an alarming pace, reaching a high not seen since the 1990s, according to new government figures.

    Newborn syphilis, a potentially fatal condition, was at one time nearly eliminated in the United States. But the disease has seen a resurgence in recent years -- and 2020 was no exception, say researchers with the U.S. Centers for Di...

    The decades-long U.S. opioid epidemic could be hitting Black people harder than white folks as the crisis enters a new phase.

    Opioid overdose death rates among Black Americans jumped nearly 40% from 2018 to 2019 in four states hammered by the epidemic, researchers found.

    Fatal ODs among all other races and ethnicities remained about the same during that time.

    This represents a...

    Fully half of all young adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may also battle alcohol or drug abuse.

    And folks with ADHD who have a history of depression or anxiety are particularly vulnerable to substance abuse problems, a new study showed.

    "People with ADHD may be self-medicating with drugs or alcohol to keep their depression under control, and of course, th...

    Overdose deaths linked to illicit "designer" benzodiazepines have surged in the United States, as underground labs crank out new synthetic variations on prescription tranquilizers like Valium, Xanax and Ativan.

    Overdose deaths involving illicit benzos increased more than sixfold (520%) between 2019 and 2020, rising from 51 to 316, according to data from 32 states and the District of Colum...

    The coronavirus pandemic has posed significant challenges for many, but it did not appear to drive U.S. preteens and young teens to drugs.

    Repeated surveys of more than 7,800 10- to 14-year-olds between September 2019 and August 2020 found the overall rate of drug use remained stable, according to the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). What did change was their drugs of choic...

    Opioid overdose deaths rose in several states during the coronavirus pandemic, according to authors of a new study who say their findings may help identify and assist at-risk people.

    "Our work represents the first multi-state report with detailed analyses," said study senior author Mohammad Jalali, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

    His team analyzed data on...

    There's been a sharp rise in opioid-related cardiac arrests in the United States and they now equal those associated with other prime causes, a new study finds.

    Of more than 1.4 million cardiac arrest hospitalizations nationwide between 2012 and 2018, more than 43,000 (3.1%) occurred in opioid users, and there was a significant increase in opioid-associated cardiac arrest over the seven-y...