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For the study, "Alcohol Brand Placement in Television Shows: A Content Coding Analysis and Comparison with Youth Brand Preference," researchers measured the alcohol-related content, including brand placements, of 10 popular televisions shows. They found an average of more than two alcohol brand placements per show episode, with some shows featuring more than 13 brand placements per episode. There was a variety of brands with a strong presence on the shows, but some were more prominent than others. Budweiser was far and away the most frequently occurring brand placement, representing 12 percent of all appearances, followed by Heineken (7 percent of all placements) and Dos Equis (6 percent of all placements). Researchers then asked more than 2,600 youth between the ages of 15 and 20 how much they watched these 10 shows, along with questions about their drinking behavior and favorite alcohol brand. The brands that were most prominent across the TV shows tended to be the bran...

Based on the strong evidence of effectiveness, "We should not limit or impede the use and expansion of buprenorphine therapy," write Drs. Xiaofan Li, Daryl Shorter, and Thomas Kosten, of the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine and Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Houston, Texas. They propose specific strategies to promote buprenorphine use while ensuring quality of care and reducing the risk of diversion and abuse. Focus on Expanding Buprenorphine Use 'Safely and Effectively' A "partial agonist" of the μ-opioid receptor in the brain, buprenorphine has similar actions to other opioids, but with less potential for abuse and a more favorable safety profile. Because it reduces demand for opioids, buprenorphine therapy is an effective deterrence strategy to combat opioid abuse. The authors cite studies suggesting that access to buprenorphine therapy can sharply reduce heroin mortality--in...

Researchers from the Medical Research Council Integrative Epidemiology Unit ( MRC IEU ) at the University of Bristol investigated how the same type of cells as those found in the arteries of the heart, known as human coronary artery endothelial cells ( HCAEC ), responded when they were exposed to both e-cigarette aerosol and conventional cigarette smoke. Their results were published in the journal  Drug and Alcohol Dependence . Professor Marcus Munafò, who was part of the study team, said: "The past few years have seen a rapid growth in the use of e-cigarettes, which deliver nicotine via inhaled aerosol. It's thought that e-cigarettes are unlikely to be as harmful as conventional cigarettes, but little data exists to show their relative harms, or the long term effects of e-cigarette use. Therefore, research into these biological effects is critical. Our study looked at the stress response in heart cells in response to cigarette smoke and e-cigarette aerosol." The...

The research, led by a social policy expert at the University of Kent, also found that people who developed drinking problems were less satisfied with life. Although the effect of alcohol on happiness is often discussed during debates about alcohol policy and regulation, it has rarely been the subject of serious academic study. Instead, governments have simply used the economist assumption that everyone always acts rationally and in their best interests -- even when they are drunk or addicted to alcohol. The study considered how people's happiness and drinking change alongside each other over a period of time. The authors, Dr Ben Baumberg Geiger of the University's School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, and Dr George MacKerron of the University of Sussex , made use of both an iPhone-based app and a traditional cohort study to generate the findings. The results suggested that, after making allowances for other factors such as illness that can effect well...