A team of researchers at Penn Sate has used an animal model to reveal, for the first time, a physiological basis for the effect of alcohol on male sexual behavior, including increased sexual arousal and decreased sexual inhibition. The research, which will be published on 2 January 2008 in the scientific journal PLoS ONE, resulted in four novel findings with broad importance for further addiction research.

Asking emergency department patients about their alcohol use and talking with them about how to reduce harmful drinking patterns is an effective way to lower rates of risky drinking in these patients, according to a nationwide collaborative study supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

Doctors writing in this week’s Christmas issue of the BMJ call on the government to introduce tougher measures to reduce alcohol related harm.

Provided they stick to the same guidelines about alcohol consumption as younger adults, regular moderate drinking poses no additional risks to the over 65s, and may even bring health benefits, according to two studies from the Peninsula Medical School in the South West of England.

A variant of a gene involved in communication among brain cells has a direct influence on alcohol consumption in mice, according to a new study by scientists supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the U.S. Army.

Most high school seniors drink because they want to experiment with alcohol, some drink for the thrill of it, and others because it helps them relax. A new study finds that a fourth group of high school students share all those reasons for drinking, but they also drink to get away from problems and to deal with anger or frustration issues.

Tobacco smoke-filled air is bad for cardiovascular health, and drinking alcohol at the same time only makes it worse, according to researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).

College students drink larger amounts of alcohol on football game days, comparable to well-known drinking days such as New Year's Eve and Halloween, according to research from The University of Texas at Austin.

College students who drink alcohol mixed with so-called “energy” drinks are at dramatically higher risk for injury and other alcohol-related consequences, compared to students who drink alcohol without energy drinks, according to new research from Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

The negative consequences of alcohol use and abuse have a disproportionate impact on racial and ethnic minorities in the United States. New research findings indicate that racial disparities in treatment completion could be reduced by increasing enrollment in residential alcohol treatment for African American and Hispanic alcohol abusers.

Combining low-dose alcohol with moderate sleep restriction can have a significant adverse effect on young men’s subjective alertness and performance behind the wheel, according to a study published in the October 1 issue of the journal SLEEP.

The U.S. researchers said Thursday that all alcohol adds equally to the risk of developing breast cancer. The researchers, led by Dr. Arthur Klatsky of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program in Oakland, United States, revealed their findings at a meeting of the European Cancer Organization in Barcelona.