There is yet another reason for parents to be on the lookout for teen alcohol use and other dangerous behaviors. Migraine headaches are more common among teenagers who drink coffee or alcohol, smoke cigarettes, or do not get much exercise, according to a new study from Ludwig-Maximilians University in Germany.

• Astrid Milde-Busch surveyed 1260 students ages 14 to 20 years old about headaches.
• Over 80 percent had experienced a headache within the past six months, but they were more common among those who drink coffee or alcohol, smoke cigarettes and/or do not exercise.
• About 5 15 percent of high school students have migraines, and 15 to 25 percent have tension headaches.
• Skipping meals was not associated with headaches.

"Our study confirms that adolescents with any type of headache might benefit from regular physical activity and low consumption of alcoholic drinks," Dr. Milde-Busch says. "In teens suffering from migraine, low coffee consumption should also be suggested."

The study appeared in the journal Headache.
 

Labels: tobacco use, health_problems, alcohol, caffeine

Posted By: Adolescent Substance Abuse 1 Comment

For parents whose children are abusing alcohol or other drugs, these behaviors – plus the risk of addiction and other potentially devastating effects – can often feel like overwhelming challenges.

And although the path back to a drug-free existence may not be an easy one, even the smallest steps have the potential to yield lifelong results.

Summertime provides many young people with increased opportunities to engage in destructive behaviors such as substance abuse. But summer can also be the ideal time to put your child back on track toward a healthy and drug-free future.

For example, at SUWS Adolescent and Youth Programs – a therapeutic wilderness program for youth ages 11 to 17 – as little as 28 days can provide students with the foundation they need to pursue long-term sobriety.

Amid the wonders of the wilderness, your child can experience a sober summer while developing the skills and strategies to pursue a productive life free from the chains of chemical dependency.
 

Labels: summer, wilderness

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

If you don't want your children to drink alcohol, be very clear that you disapprove of underage drinking, according to two experts on adolescent alcoholism.

• Caitlin Abar from Pennsylvania State University studied 300 teenagers and their parents.
• Abar found that parents who disapprove of underage drinking tended to have students who engage in less drinking, and less binge drinking once they were in college.
• Parental permissiveness was a factor linked to later binge drinking.
• Her research team also found that although parents drinking patterns influence a child's later alcohol use, it was a parent's rules about drinking that had the strongest effect.
• The study appeared in the journal Addictive Behaviors.

Another study, this time from Dutch researcher Haske van der Vorst, found that the European drinking model of having children drink with their parents at home actually encourages out of control drinking.

"The more parents drink at home, the more they drink at other places and the higher the risk for problematic alcohol use later," she said.
 

Labels: prevention, alcohol_abuse, parental_involvement

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 0 Comments

A four-year study of 1246 middle school children found that even one cigarette a month can lead to addiction.

Dr. Joseph DiFranza of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center found that two-thirds of the children in the study who had tried cigarettes smoked at least once a month. Half of them experienced symptoms of cravings and dependence when they tried to quit.

• Dr. DiFranza said his study found that after two years, one-third of the students who had tried cigarettes had little control over their habit.
• As time went by, they were likely to smoke cigarettes more often, and became irritable and experienced difficulty concentrating when they were deprived of nicotine.
• After three years, one in four students who tried to stop smoking experienced withdrawal symptoms.

This study appeared in the journal Pediatrics.
 

Labels: tobacco use, addiction, middle_school, cigarettes

Posted By: Aspen Education Group 1 Comment

Young adults tend to outgrow impulsive behaviors, which in turn leads to a decrease in alcohol consumption, according to a new study from the University of Missouri,

Dr. Andrew Littlefield and his colleagues studied people in early adulthood, ages 18 to 35 years old, and found that impulsivity tends to decrease as people get older, and that trajectory corresponds to less alcohol abuse.

"Future studies could examine why some individuals make significant changes in impulsivity across time, whereas other individuals' level of impulsivity remains relatively stable," Dr. Littlefield wrote in his report in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
 

Labels: alcohol_abuse, binge drinking

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 0 Comments

Teenagers and young adults give similar reasons why they want to quit problem drinking, according to new research in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

• Researchers compared people who wanted to quit drinking at ages 13 to 17 years old to those ages 18 to 25 years old. The most common reason to quit was the same among both groups.
• "To show yourself you can quit if you want to" was cited by 74% of young adults and 79% of the teenagers.
• "To save money" was the second most common reason, given by 70% of the young adults and 65% of the teenagers.
• "Future health consequences" was a concern of 49% of teenagers and 51% of young adults.

Teenagers were more likely to cite pressure from family and family troubles, probably because they were more likely to live at home. Young adults tended to worry more what their peer groups felt about their drinking.

However, authors Douglas Smith, Leah Cleeland and Michael Dennis wrote that "we found no significant differences on overall reasons for quitting between emerging adults and adolescents, with the exception of the interpersonal motivation items, few differences existed at the item level when controlling for baseline differences among age cohorts."
 

Labels: alcohol, recovery

Posted By: Adolescent Substance Abuse 0 Comments

Being around the opposite sex triggers stress hormones, which in turn increases the amount of alcohol consumed (and thus the likelihood of binge drinking), according to a study of laboratory animals from the Rutgers University Center of Alcohol Studies.

"We've seen consistently that the males drink more when there are females round and the females drink more when the males around," said Dr. Arthur Tomie. "And by looking at this, we can better understand what happens with people; we can understand how the tendency to binge drink is likely to occur in mixed company."

Dr. Tomie's research found that male rats drink 55 percent more when exposed to one female, and they show increased levels of corticosterone, indicating high stress levels. Alcohol is considered an anti-anxiety drug with respect to social stress, Dr. Tomie explained.
 

Labels: binge drinking

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 0 Comments

Not being attached to school and family are predictors of alcohol abuse among adolescents, according to a study in the Journal of Counseling Psychology.

• Professors Kimberly Henry and Eugene Oetting of Colorado State University and her colleagues studied 1,064 middle school students for two years, keeping track of changes to their true or false answers to questions such as, "My family cares about what I do," "School is fun," and "My teachers like me."
• Those students who answered in a way that showed a lack of attachment to their families and schools were more likely to abuse alcohol. Another predictor of alcohol abuse was having friends who abuse alcohol.

"The study showed that the short time in junior high school is a time of Important changes for some individual adolescents," according to the report. "There are significant changes in family and school attachment and significant changes in association with alcohol-using peers. These within-person changes were accompanied by within-person changes in alcohol use."
 

Labels: alcohol_abuse, causes_of_teen_substance_abuse, families

Posted By: CRC Health Group 0 Comments

Being religious could help teenagers resist alcohol, even if they have a genetic predisposition toward alcoholism, according to a new study from the University of Colorado. However, this effect does not carry over into young adulthood.

Dr. Tanya Button studied 1432 pairs of identical and fraternal twins when they were adolescents and young adults, measuring their religiosity and problem alcohol abuse.

"Our study showed that genetic factors could influence problem alcohol use more in nonreligious adolescents than adolescents with a greater religious outlook," said Dr. Button. "This attenuation in religious participants indicates that religiosity exerted a strong enough influence over the behavior of religious individuals to override any genetic predisposition. The same was not true for young adults, however, for whom the genetic influence was consistent across levels of religiosity."

The study appeared in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
 

Labels: prevention, alcohol_abuse, alcohol, religion

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 1 Comment

Young people who experiment with alcohol are more likely to get into other risky behaviors, such as smoking, abusing drugs and shoplifting according to new study from Great Britain.

Researchers from the National Center for Social Research studied 15,000 British teenagers and found that 55 percent had tried alcohol before age 14 years old, and 85 percent by 17 years old. Girls were more likely to experiment with alcohol than boys. White, nonreligious, and affluent teenagers were more likely to drink than children from low income homes.
 

Labels: drug use, alcohol, behaviors

Posted By: Adolescent Substance Abuse 0 Comments