(Press-News.org) Younger age of first cannabis use or prescription drug misuse is associated with faster development of substance use disorders
NIH analysis measures the prevalence of nine substance use disorders after first substance use or misuse in young people
A new study shows that in the time after first trying cannabis or first misusing prescription drugs, the percentages of young people who develop the corresponding substance use disorder are higher among adolescents (ages 12-17) than young adults (ages 18-25). In addition, 30% of young adults develop a heroin use disorder and 25% develop a methamphetamine use disorder a year after first using heroin or methamphetamine. These findings, published in JAMA Pediatrics, emphasize the vulnerability of young people to developing substance use disorders.
The study was led by researchers at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health.
"We know that young people are more vulnerable to developing substance use disorders, but knowledge is limited on how the prevalence of specific substance use disorders varies by time since first substance use or misuse among adolescents and young adults in the United States," said Dr. Nora Volkow, M.D., NIDA Director and a lead author of the analysis. "Though not everyone who uses a drug will develop addiction, adolescents may develop addiction to substances faster than young adults. This study provides further evidence that delaying substance exposure until the brain is more fully developed may lower risk for developing a substance use disorder."
To conduct this study, NIDA researchers analyzed data from the nationally representative 2015 to 2018 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
The researchers examined the proportion, or prevalence, of adolescents (ages 12-17) and young adults (ages 18-25) who had a substance use disorder in the past year (i.e., past-year substance use disorder) at various intervals since the first time they used or misused one of nine different drugs: tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and prescription drugs (opioids, stimulants, and tranquilizers used non-medically). The researchers evaluated past-year substance use disorders at four timepoints since first drug use: fewer than or equal to 12 months, more than 12 through 24 months, more than 24 through 36 months, and more than 36 months.
The researchers found that the prevalence of past-year cannabis use disorder was higher for adolescents than young adults at all examined time frames since first use of the drug. For example, within 12 months since first cannabis use, 10.7% of adolescents had cannabis use disorder versus 6.4% of young adults.
Similarly, for the non-medical use of prescription drugs (opioids, stimulants, and tranquilizers), the researchers found a greater prevalence of past-year substance use disorders among adolescents than young adults at all examined time frames since first use. For example, within 12 months since first misuse of prescription drugs:
11.2% of adolescents had prescription opioid use disorder versus 6.9% of young adults.
13.9% of adolescents had prescription stimulant use disorder versus 3.9% of young adults.
11.2% of adolescents had prescription tranquilizer use disorder versus 4.7% of young adults.
For alcohol and tobacco, adolescents and young adults had similar prevalence of past-year substance use disorders within 12 months of initiation, but that prevalence was higher for young adults in the subsequent time periods examined.
Estimates of cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin use among adolescents were too small to report. However, approximately one-third of young adults developed a heroin use disorder (30.9%) and one-quarter of young adults developed a methamphetamine use disorder (24.8%) within one year after trying that drug for the first time.
The data excluded individuals who were incarcerated and individuals experiencing homelessness who are not living in shelters, possibly underestimating the prevalence of substance use disorders across the findings, authors noted.
"Research has shown that brain development continues into a person's 20s, and that age of drug initiation is a very important risk factor for developing addiction," said Emily B. Einstein, Ph.D., chief of NIDA's Science Policy Branch and a co-author of the study. "This underscores the importance of drug use prevention and screening for substance use or misuse among adolescents and young adults. Offering timely treatment and support to young people who need it must be a public health priority."
INFORMATION:
Reference: Volkow ND,* Han B,* Einstein EB, Compton WM. Prevalence of Substance Use Disorders by Time Since First Substance Use Among Young People in the US. Published online March 29, 2021 in JAMA Pediatrics.
(*Senior authorship shared equally).
Link: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2020.6981?guestAccessKey=84ec6be8-7880-4e99-89e9-42f08c11dec7utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=032921
About the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA): NIDA is a component of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIDA supports most of the world's research on the health aspects of drug use and addiction. The Institute carries out a large variety of programs to inform policy, improve practice, and advance addiction science. For more information about NIDA and its programs, visit http://www.drugabuse.gov.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.
A hydrogel, a type of soft matter, developed at Hokkaido University successfully reverted cancer cells back to cancer stem cells within 24 hours, in six different human cancer types. This could lead to the development of anti-cancer stem cell drugs and personalized medicines.
An innovative hydrogel - called a double network (DN) gel - can rapidly reprogram differentiated cancer cells into cancer stem cells, researchers at Hokkaido University and the National Cancer Center Research Institute have reported in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering. The hydrogel can be used to help develop ...
A new black hole breaks the record -- not for being the smallest or the biggest -- but for being right in the middle.
The recently discovered 'Goldilocks' black hole is part of a missing link between two populations of black holes: small black holes made from stars and supermassive giants in the nucleus of most galaxies.
In a joint effort, researchers from the University of Melbourne and Monash University have uncovered a black hole approximately 55,000 times the mass of the sun, a fabled "intermediate-mass" black hole.
The discovery was published today in the paper Evidence for an intermediate mass black hole from a gravitationally lensed gamma-ray burst in the journal Nature Astronomy.
Lead author and University of Melbourne PhD student, ...
In the last few years, as climate changes continues to become more severe, there has been a growing push for rich countries to pay poorer ones to preserve and protect rain forests and other tropical forests. However, according to a new study in Nature Ecology & Evolution, RIHN Associate Professor Keiichiro Kanemoto and Senior Researcher Nguyen Tien Hoang show that other financial motives, namely international trade, with these same rich countries have actually encouraged poorer countries to increase their annual deforestation levels from 2001 to 2015.
Every year ...
CAMBRIDGE, MA - Using an ordinary light microscope, MIT engineers have devised a technique for imaging biological samples with accuracy at the scale of 10 nanometers -- which should enable them to image viruses and potentially even single biomolecules, the researchers say.
The new technique builds on expansion microscopy, an approach that involves embedding biological samples in a hydrogel and then expanding them before imaging them with a microscope. For the latest version of the technique, the researchers developed a new type of hydrogel that maintains a more uniform configuration, allowing for greater accuracy in imaging tiny structures.
This degree of accuracy ...
Simulating the interactions between atoms and molecules is important for many scientific studies. However, accurate simulations can take a long time, which limits their use. To speed up simulations without sacrificing too much detail, Siewert-Jan Marrink, Professor of Molecular Dynamics at the University of Groningen, designed a set of parameters that allow fast but accurate coarse-grained simulations. In a paper that was published on 29 March in Nature Methods, Marrink and his co-workers present a third release of what is known as the Martini forcefield.
'Our Martini forcefield typically combines four heavy atoms and any attached protons into ...
New research reveals how cancer cells endure stress and survive. Publishing in Molecular Cell, an international research team identified mechanisms that human and mouse cells use to survive heat shock and resume their original function - and even pass the memory of the experience of stress down to their daughter cells.
Lead author Anniina Vihervaara, Assistant Professor in Gene Technology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, says the results provide insight into the mechanisms that coordinate transcription in cells, which potentially could make a vital contribution in disease research.
The researchers examined how embryonic fibroblast ...
The permanent rise of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere, which fundamentally changed the subsequent nature of Earth's habitability, occurred much later than thought, according to new research.
And the study, from an international team led by the University of Leeds and including researchers from the University of California-Riverside, Harvard University, the University of Southern Denmark and the University of St Andrews, also provides an explanation for some of the most extreme climate episodes to have affected the Earth, when the planet was repeatedly covered with ice.
The first time oxygen was significantly present in the atmosphere was about ...
A team of researchers led by Aarhus University and including experts from universities and knowledge institutions in the US, Europe, Japan and Australia has published an article in the prestigious scientific journal Joule confirming that the role of solar photovoltaic installations in future green energy systems ought to be significantly upgraded.
Solar photovoltaic technology has undergone dramatic development over the past 14 years causing the technology to be cheaper already today than has otherwise been assumed in the models that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) uses for its 2050 scenarios.
"And ...
The B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 variants of SARS-CoV-2 were first detected in the UK and South Africa respectively, and have since spread to many other countries. Scientists from the Institut Pasteur joined forces with Orléans Regional Hospital, Tours University Hospital, Créteil Intercommunal Hospital, Strasbourg University Hospital and Georges Pompidou European Hospital to study the sensitivity of these two variants to neutralizing antibodies present in the serum samples of people who have been vaccinated or previously infected with SARS-CoV-2. They compared this sensitivity with that of the reference virus (D614G), which was until recently the most widespread strain in France. The scientists demonstrated that the UK variant is neutralized to the ...
Until now, historians have treated accounts of extreme weather events that might indicate climate change, or more specifically an increase in rainfall, with suspicion. Too many purely cultural factors, they argue, might have influenced one author or another to write about rains, droughts or floods. A new interdisciplinary study lead by researchers from the University of Pisa and the University of Warsaw, together with an international team of collaborators, links data indicating increased precipitation in northern and central Italy during the 6th century CE to historical accounts contained in contemporaneous texts about the lives and miracles of saints. The paper successfully integrates palaeoclimate proxies with historical ...
