(Press-News.org) Domenic Ciraulo, MD, chair of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and David H. Barlow, PhD, professor of psychology at Boston University (BU), have collaborated to study the effect of behavioral and medication treatments on patients with alcoholism and anxiety.
The findings, published in the journal Behaviour Research and Therapy, suggest that Transdiagnostic cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) was more effective in reducing heavy drinking in anxious alcoholics than progressive muscle relaxation therapy (PMR). They also found that the addition of medication to either CBT or PMR participants did not decrease their alcohol consumption.
Participants were divided into four groups; one receiving the antidepressant Venlaflaxine coupled with CBT, one receiving Venlaflaxine with PMR, and the other groups receiving a placebo coupled with either CBT or PMR. After 11 weeks the participants in the group receiving a placebo and CBT alone reported their heavy drinking had significantly decreased when compared to the other groups receiving treatment.
"It is vital to find better treatments, whether they are medication therapies or behavioral interventions," said Ciraulo, principal investigator of the study. "This study points to the importance of behavioral approaches to decrease heavy drinking through strategies to improve emotional regulation."
According to the researchers, while anti-depressant medications may help to control anxious feelings, the ability to acknowledge and respond to such intense feelings may be one reason that CBT is effective. This may be why the addition of an anti-depressant to CBT did not lead to improved outcomes.
"The goal of Transdiagnostic CBT in this study was not to directly treat the specific anxiety symptoms of each anxiety disorder, but rather teach broad skills to cope with emotional issues that underlie a cluster of internalizing (mood and anxiety) disorders that often accompany alcoholism and may contribute to its onset and maintenance," said Barlow co-author of the study.
### END
Boston University researchers test effectiveness of treatments for alcoholism and anxiety
2013-10-07
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
How do stress hormones during pregnancy predict adult nicotine addiction?
2013-10-07
(PROVIDENCE, R.I.) -- Adult women whose mothers had increased levels of stress hormones while they were pregnant are at greater risk of becoming addicted to nicotine, according to a new study led by a Miriam Hospital researcher.
The 40-year longitudinal study provides the first evidence that prenatal exposure to the class of stress hormones known as glucocorticoids predicts nicotine dependence later in life – but only for daughters. It also confirms previous research that babies born to moms who smoked when pregnant have an increased risk of nicotine addiction in adulthood. ...
Numerically identifying pollen grains improves on conventional ID method
2013-10-07
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Researchers have developed a new quantitative – rather than qualitative – method of identifying pollen grains that is certainly nothing to sneeze at.
The research appears in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
Since the invention of the earliest light microscopes, the classification and identification of pollen and spores has been a highly subjective venture for those who use these tiny particles to study vegetation in their field, palynology.
However, according to the lead author of the study, Luke Mander, a former ...
Scientists unlock secret of cattle ticks' resistance to pesticide
2013-10-07
Scientists have discovered how a tick which transmits devastating diseases to cattle has developed resistance to one of the main pesticides used to kill it.
Approximately 80% of cattle around the world, mostly in the tropics and sub-tropics, are exposed to the cattle tick – Rhipicephalis microplus – which can cause anaemia, reduced rate of growth and death, resulting in a major economic impact on farmers.
Prevention of disease is through frequent treatment of cattle with acarides –pesticides for ticks and mites – mainly amitraz, ivermectins and pyrethroids, but ticks ...
Infanticide linked to wet-nursing in meerkats
2013-10-07
Subordinate female meerkats who try to breed often lose their offspring to infanticide by the dominant female or are evicted from the group. These recently bereaved or ostracised mothers may then become wet-nurses for the dominant female, an activity that may be a form of "rent" that allows them to remain in the community.
Wet-nursing another mother's offspring – called allolactation – occurs across a variety of mammals and is thought to provide survival benefits to the nursed offspring and to the mother of the pups. However, little has been definitively known of why ...
Study: Lance Armstrong failed social media, too
2013-10-07
CLEMSON, S.C. — Lance Armstrong used Twitter to employ image-repair strategies in a way that cultivated followers and countered media reports. However, he neglected to enact any image-repair tweets following his admission to using performance-enhancing drugs in a nationally staged interview with Oprah Winfrey, researchers say.
Clemson University communication studies assistant professor Jimmy Sanderson said traditional media like television and newspapers have been a staple of image repair, but with the rise of social media, athletes now have an additional avenue for ...
South Africa reverses mortality trend in children under 5
2013-10-07
Philadelphia, Pa. (October 7, 2013) – Over the past decade, South Africa has made a dramatic reversal in child survival—mainly because of improvements in HIV/AIDS care, reports a study in AIDS, official journal of the International AIDS Society. AIDS is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.
"After years of rising mortality rates, the mortality picture for South Africa's children has shifted drastically," according to the report by Kate Kerber, MPH, of University of the Western Cape, Belleville, South Africa, supported by the global ...
How JC Polyomavirus invades cells
2013-10-07
For more than a decade the research group of Brown University Professor Walter Atwood has doggedly pursued the workings of the JC polyomavirus, which causes a disease called PML that fatally degrades the central nervous system of patients with weakened immune systems. In a study published online Oct. 2 in the Journal of Virology, his team describes how it gains entry into cells: It breaks in via certain receptors of the neurotransmitter serotonin called 5-HT2 receptors.
Atwood, lead author and graduate student Benedetta Assetta and their co-authors showed this by inserting ...
Facial recognition is more accurate in photos showing whole person
2013-10-07
Subtle body cues allow people to identify others with surprising accuracy when faces are difficult to differentiate. This skill may help researchers improve person-recognition software and expand their understanding of how humans recognize each other.
A study published in Psychological Science by researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas demonstrates that humans rely on non-facial cues, such as body shape and build, to identify people in challenging viewing conditions, such as poor lighting.
"Psychologists and computer scientists have concentrated almost exclusively ...
Where in the world are young people using the internet?
2013-10-07
According to a common myth, today's young people are all glued to the Internet. But in fact, only 30 percent of the world's youth population between the ages of 15 and 24 years old has been active online for at least five years. In South Korea, 99.6 percent of young people are active, the highest percentage in the world. The least? The Asian island of Timor Leste with less than 1 percent.
Those are among the many findings in a study from the Georgia Institute of Technology and International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The study is the first attempt to measure, by ...
Sending multiple sclerosis up in smoke
2013-10-07
Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease in which the immune system attacks the nervous system. The result can be a wide range of debilitating motor, physical, and mental problems. No one knows why people get the disease or how to treat it.
In a new study published in the Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology, Drs. Ewa Kozela, Ana Juknat, Neta Rimmerman and Zvi Vogel of Tel Aviv University's Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Center for the Biology of Addictive Diseases and Sackler Faculty of Medicine demonstrate that some chemical compounds found in marijuana can help ...