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Alcohol Use Disorder and Dementia: A Review
In 2020, an estimated 17% of the U.S. population was older than age 65; this proportion is projected to rise to about 23% by 2060.1,2 This prompts an urgent need for identifying potential and modifiable risk factors contributing to health decline.3,4 After tobacco, alcohol is the most misused substance in the United States and abroad.5 Even prior to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID...
Abundant cross-sectional data indicate that alcohol use and related problems are accompanied by disruptions to sleep and circadian rhythms.1 Alcohol's negative impacts on sleep are well established, especially in adults, and a smaller body of literature also reports alcohol's disruption of circadian rhythms.2-4 Growing evidence supports sleep and circadian factors as influencing...
Reducing Prenatal Alcohol Exposure and the Incidence of FASD: Is the Past Prologue?
Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) is linked to miscarriage, stillbirth, preterm birth, sudden infant death syndrome, and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD).1 Although PAE is the sole necessary cause of FASD, the etiology of this leading preventable cause of disability is multifaceted and complex, including lifestyle, maternal, sociodemographic, social, gestational, and genetic...
Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) is a necessary cause of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), a group of alcohol-related conditions characterized by neurodevelopmental problems. Although PAE is associated with many adverse physical, neurodevelopmental, and social outcomes, the most commonly studied are neurodevelopmental—primarily behavioral and cognitive—outcomes. Associations...
NIAAA 50th Anniversary Festschrift: From the Editor
NIAAA’s 50th anniversary is truly a highlight in the history of public health. More than 5 decades ago, a group of researchers, advocates, and elected officials made a farsighted decision when they pushed for the creation of a federal institution dedicated to research that improves the lives of millions of Americans and their families devastated by alcohol misuse. As a result, on...
Alcohol Use Disorder and Alcohol-Associated Liver Disease
Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is prevalent worldwide, and the burden of heavy alcohol consumption has been increasing over time. An important complication of prolonged, heavy alcohol use is alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD), which can progress from liver steatosis to fibrosis and cirrhosis and frequently involves alcohol-associated hepatitis. In particular, cirrhosis—the most...
Alcohol-Endocannabinoid Interactions: Implications for Addiction-Related Behavioral Processes
Endogenous cannabinoids, or endocannabinoids (eCBs), are bioactive lipid molecules that modulate signaling activity of several physiological processes involved in pain, appetite, energy balance, stress/anxiety, immune signaling, and learning and memory. Although understanding of the eCB system has grown in complexity since its discovery by Raphael Mechoulam, it is now widely known...
Alcohol and the Adolescent Brain: What We’ve Learned and Where the Data Are Taking Us
The past 50 years of research supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) have resulted in an accumulation of invaluable data to address the multifaceted problems surrounding underage drinking. Youth use of alcohol remains a pervasive social and public health concern in the United States and a leading cause of disability and mortality during...
For the past 25 years, a growing number of U.S. states have been progressively legalizing cannabis markets, first through the early adoption of medical cannabis laws, which enabled the purchase and possession of cannabis for specific medicinal purposes, and then more recently through laws regarding adult (i.e., “recreational”) use of cannabis. As of May 2021, more than 70% of U.S...
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders: Awareness to Insight in Just 50 Years
The establishment of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) in 1971 was bracketed by three seminal papers that laid the groundwork for the field of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) research. In 1968, Lemoine et al.1 described children with birth defects and neurodevelopmental disorders associated with prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE). This French...
