Alcohol companies used controversial marketing practices in their Super Bowl commercials – including using animals and themes that are appealing to youth.
Alcohol contributes to close to 90,000 deaths a year. Because repeated binge drinking damages the brain, it’s hard to know when we’ve developed a problem. Here are some things to consider.
The gambling industry certainly holds an attraction for former politicians. Perhaps it’s all that money, and the attraction of staying in the game – even if at a peripheral level.
Regardless of how they are consumed, alcohol and other drugs eventually make their way into the brain via the bloodstream. Once there, they affect how messages are sent through the brain.
Heavy drinking causes brain changes that make you want to drink more. But using a virus to deliver a gene into specific neurons in the brain may be a way to mitigate those changes.
Women are catching up to men in rates of alcohol consumption and this has important implications for how we think about our community response to harmful alcohol use.
Professor, Director of Research and Statistical Support Service and Program Leader for Substance Use and Mental Health, Centre for Health Services Research, The University of Queensland