Combined prenatal smoking and drinking greatly increases SIDS risk

Children born to mothers who both drank and smoked beyond the first trimester of pregnancy have a 12-fold increased risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)  compared to those unexposed or only exposed in the first trimester of pregnancy, according to a new study supported by the National Institutes of Health.   SIDS is the … Read more

Study Identifies Genetic Variant that May Contribute to Alcohol and Drug Addiction

People with a genetic variant of a neurotransmitter gene may have an increased risk of addiction to alcohol and other substances later in life if they were exposed to childhood stress, such as divorce or emotionally distant parents, and other adverse experiences, according to recent research. The study led by researchers at the University of … Read more

Alcohol-related deaths increasing in the United States

An analysis of U.S. death certificate data by researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health, found that nearly 1 million people died from alcohol-related causes between 1999 and 2017. The number of death certificates mentioning alcohol more than doubled from 35,914 in 1999 to … Read more