http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. (Medical Xpress)—With a New Year approaching and healthy lifestyle choices topping the list of personal resolutions, millions of smokers across New York State and more throughout the U.S. will attempt to quit smoking. Making an effort to stop smoking is an appropriate one given World Health Organization estimates that smoking contributes to five million deaths each year. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-cessation-expert-smokers.html Addiction Wed, 02 Jan 2013 09:53:12 EST news276342777 It's a sad but familiar scene near the grounds of many medical campuses: hospital-gowned patients, some toting rolling IV poles, huddled in clumps under bus shelters or warming areas, smoking cigarettes. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-habits-die-hard-cancer-patients.html Cancer Mon, 26 Nov 2012 12:50:15 EST news273156596 (Medical Xpress)—Drugs for psychiatric disorders such as depression and schizophrenia often require weeks to take full effect. "What takes so long?" has formed one of psychiatry's most stubborn mysteries. Now a fresh look at previous research on quite a different drug—nicotine—is providing answers. The new ideas may point the way toward new generations of psychiatric drugs that work faster and better. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-approach-common-psychiactric-treatments.html Psychology & Psychiatry Wed, 21 Nov 2012 07:50:13 EST news272706592 A new study from Sweden reveals that having low peer status in adolescence is a strong risk factor for regular and heavy smoking in adulthood. Researchers from Stockholm University in Sweden used a large database that followed the lives of more than 15,000 Swedes, mainly from the Stockholm area, from birth to middle age. The researchers isolated 2,329 people who were interviewed once at age 13 about peer status at school and again at age 32 about their smoking habits. The results indicate that the lower a young person's status is among his or her school peers, the more likely that person is to become a regular (less than 20 cigarettes per day) or heavy (20+ cigarettes) smoker in adulthood. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-adolescents-status-peers-adult-smokers.html Addiction Tue, 20 Nov 2012 00:00:11 EST news272562959 (Medical Xpress)—Researchers at the Aptuit Centre for Drug Discovery and Development in Italy, have found that a drug called GSK598809 is able to block a type of dopamine receptor in the brain that has been linked to nicotine addiction. The team, studying the impact of the drug on baboons and mice has found, as they describe in their paper published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, that when delivered to the brain, the drug appears able to reduce the cravings for nicotine found in the smoke of cigarettes and thus may someday soon serve as an aide to quitting the habit that kills millions the world over every year. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-experimental-drug-nicotine-craving.html Neuroscience Thu, 13 Sep 2012 07:16:15 EST news266739348 Everybody is talking about Internet addiction. Medically, this phenomenon has not yet been as clearly described as nicotine or alcohol dependency. But a study conducted by researchers from the University of Bonn and the Central Institute of Mental Health (ZI) in Mannheim now provides indications that there are molecular-genetic connections in Internet addiction, too. The results is reported in the Journal of Addiction Medicine. The print version appears in the September issue. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-internet-addictioncauses-molecular.html Addiction Wed, 29 Aug 2012 11:10:25 EST news265457420 Children who exhibit oppositional behavior run the risk of becoming addicted to nicotine, cannabis and cocaine whilst Inattention symptoms represent a specific additional risk of nicotine addiction. Nevertheless, hyperactivity in itself does not seem to be associated with any specific risk of substance abuse or dependence. This is what researchers at the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Center's (UHC) Research Center and the University of Montreal concluded following a 15-year population-based study published in Molecular Psychiatry. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-childhood-defiance-drug.html Psychology & Psychiatry Wed, 01 Aug 2012 12:01:50 EST news263041302 (Medical Xpress) -- Smokers can begin loosening the tight grip of nicotine addiction by smoking low-nicotine cigarettes, without lighting up any more than they usually do, according to recent research. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-cigarettes-tobacco-nicotine-smokers.html Health Tue, 03 Jul 2012 07:56:23 EST news260520977 Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College have developed and successfully tested in mice an innovative vaccine to treat nicotine addiction. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-anti-body-vaccine-blocks-addictive-nicotine.html Medical research Wed, 27 Jun 2012 14:00:07 EST news260010070 The same gene variations that make it difficult to stop smoking also increase the likelihood that heavy smokers will respond to nicotine-replacement therapy and drugs that thwart cravings, a new study shows. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-genes-medication.html Genetics Wed, 30 May 2012 11:25:26 EST news257595890 A major research trial to test the effectiveness of offering smokers free nicotine patches and proactive telephone counselling through the English national quitline has shown this extra support makes no difference to success rates for quitting the habit. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-free-nicotine-patches-national-helpline.html Addiction Thu, 22 Mar 2012 19:30:02 EST news251654167 (Medical Xpress) -- A research team from Yale and the University of Connecticut has found that the cooling effect of menthol may actually cause people to smoke more and become addicted to cigarettes because it reduces the protective respiratory response to irritants in cigarette smoke. The biggest danger, they argue, is to young smokers, because they disproportionately prefer menthol cigarettes and are therefore likely to become addicted more quickly. The study appears online in the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-menthol-effects-addiction-illness-young.html Health Tue, 13 Sep 2011 05:30:47 EST news235110616 An enzyme that appears to play a role in controlling the brain's response to nicotine and alcohol in mice might be a promising target for a drug that simultaneously would treat nicotine addiction and alcohol abuse in people, according to a study by researchers at the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center, affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-enzyme-alcoholism.html Medical research Mon, 12 Sep 2011 15:00:01 EST news235043020 Researchers at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen have collaborated with the company NeuroSearch to generate new knowledge about an important part of the brain's complex communication system. The discovery could form the basis for future development of better medicines for patients with psychiatric disorders. The results were recently published Journal of Neuroscience. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-piece-puzzle-brain-function.html Neuroscience Fri, 19 Aug 2011 09:27:43 EST news232964843 Obese teenage girls are more than twice as likely as other girls to develop high-level nicotine addiction as young adults, according to a new study. Nearly 20 percent of American adolescents currently are obese, the authors note. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-obese-girls-addicted.html Health Tue, 21 Jun 2011 14:41:15 EST news227886054 A person's vulnerability to nicotine addiction appears to have a genetic basis, at least in part. A region in the midbrain called the habenula (from Latin: small reins) plays a key role in this process, as Dr. Inés Ibañez-Tallon and her team from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch, Germany, have now shown. They also shed light on the mechanism that underlies addiction to nicotine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-reining-nicotine-midbrain-habenula-region.html Neuroscience Thu, 12 May 2011 10:47:55 EST news224416056