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A substantial increase in opioid prescriptions over the past two decades in the US has gone hand-in-hand with a significant rise in overdoses and addiction treatment. These trends have prompted calls for the more selective use of opioids for medical reasons. Deyo's team wanted to shed light on how much and for how long opioids can be prescribed for the first time to so-called opioid-naïve patients without their inadvertently becoming long-term users. They focused their attention on Oregon, the US state with the highest rate of non-medical opioid users in a 2012 survey. One year's data was obtained from Oregon's prescription monitoring program about outpatient prescriptions filled for controlled substances, including opioids, at all non-state or non-federal retail pharmacies. Data from Oregon vital records and a statewide hospital discharge registry were also included. Deyo's team began with data from 3.6 million opioid prescriptions filled for 874,765 patients. Of t

Nonmedical prescription drug use is typically defined as either the self-treatment of a medical condition using prescription medication that was not prescribed to the user, or as the use of prescription medication to achieve euphoric states. A research team led by scientists at RTI International in the US investigated nonmedical prescription drug use as it is among the leading public health issues in the US and previous research has suggested that it is more widespread there than in the EU, where prevalence and user characteristics remain largely unknown. Dr Scott Novak, lead author of the study, said: "This is the first comparative study of prescription drug abuse in the European Union. Previously it was thought that the prescription drug epidemic was limited to the United States, but this study shows that the epidemic extends well beyond the US." Examining three different classes of subscription drug -- opioids, sedatives and stimulants -- the researchers found tha

By comparing the genomes of rats that drank compulsively with those that abstained, Purdue and Indiana University researchers identified 930 genes associated with alcoholism, indicating that it is a highly complex trait - on par with human height - influenced by many genes and the environment. The study confirmed genes previous ly identified as being l inked to alcoholism and uncovered new genes and neurological pathways, some of which could be promising targets for treatment. But the sheer number of genes that contribute to the trait suggests pharmaceutical treatments for alcoholism could be difficult to develop, said William Muir, professor of genetics. "It's not one gene, one problem," he said. "This trait is controlled by vast numbers of genes and networks. This probably dashes water on the idea of treating alcoholism with a single pill." One of the best predictors of alcoholism in humans is the drinking behavior of their families. But to what extent

"Our data suggest that college students who misuse prescription stimulant medications are more likely to exhibit clinically relevant psychiatric dysfunction," says Timothy Wilens, MD, chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at MassGeneral Hospital for Children (MGHfC) and co-director of the MGH Center for Addiction Medicine, corresponding author of the report. "In addition to higher levels of ADHD, conduct disorder, and alcohol or drug use disorders, the majority of those misusing stimulants met or approached criteria for stimulant-use disorder." Stimulant drugs are widely prescribed to treat ADHD, which is believed to affect up to 8 percent of U.S. college students, and several studies have documented frequent nonmedical use -- either without a prescription or taking higher-than-prescribed doses -- particularly among college students. One recent study found that almost two thirds of college students had been offered stimulants for nonmedical use and 31 percen

The team's results show that black patients who visit emergency rooms with back and abdominal pain are significantly less likely to receive opioid prescriptions than white patients with the same pain level. These conditions are referred to as 'non-definitive conditions' as they do not have a clear clinical presentation, and are often difficult to diagnose. It is important to note that no difference was found for visits pertaining to fractures, kidney stones or toothaches . Given the prescription opioid epidemic throughout the country, physicians and hospitals are under increased pressure to be vigilant when prescribing such medications. As such, doctors may be relying on subjective cues such as race when prescribing opioids for pain-related conditions. The researchers conducted their experiment using the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS). Examining medications prescribed and administered in emergency departments over a five-year period from 2007

Up to 170 million people worldwide have hepatiti s C virus (HCV) infection and injection drug use is a major risk factor. While the once-daily dosing, low side-effects profile, and shortened treatment duration of interferon-free direct-acting antivirals are ideal for injection drug users, most trials of these therapies for HCV have excluded persons with recent injection drug use. The CO-STAR (Hepatitis C Patients on Opioid Substitution Therapy Antiviral Response) trial sought to evaluate the efficacy and safety of elbasvir-grazoprevir for injection drug users. Researchers assigned 301 treatment-naive patients with chronic HCV genotype 1, 4, or 6 infection who were at least 80 percent adherent to visits for opioid-agonist therapy to immediate treatment with elbasvir-grazoprevir for 12 weeks, or deferred treatment with placebo for 12 weeks, then open-label elbasvir-grazoprevir for 12 weeks. They found that 91.5 percent of the patients in the immediate treatment group achieved susta