Monday, August 02, 2004

Study reports prevalence and co-occurrence of alcohol, drug, mood and anxiety disorders
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism press release at EurekAlert - "An estimated 17.6 million American adults (8.5 percent) meet standard diagnostic criteria for an alcohol use disorder and approximately 4.2 million (2 percent) meet criteria for a drug use disorder. Overall, about one-tenth (9.4 percent) of American adults, or 19.4 million persons, meet clinical criteria for a substance use disorder--either an alcohol or drug use disorder or both--according to results from the 2001-2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) reported in the current Archives of General Psychiatry [Volume 61, August 2004: 807-816]. Conducted by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health, the NESARC is a representative survey of the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized population aged 18 years and older. With more than 43,000 adult Americans participating, the NESARC is the largest study ever conducted of the co-occurrence of psychiatric disorders among U.S. adults." See also the related resources available at the NIAAA web site.  
  

Substance Abuse, Mental Woes Strike 1 in 10
Health News story - "A new study finds that substance abuse and depression aren't as intertwined as conventional wisdom would have it, but are stand-alone illnesses that each affect roughly one in 10 Americans. Although a substantial minority of people with one of these disorders have another, most people suffer from just one, says a report in the August issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry. But in those commingling cases, doctors shouldn't assume they can kill two birds with one stone and should instead treat the problems separately, the researchers said.."