Kathryn Walsh presents a study of ‘high risk’ young people, which found that cannabis abuse or dependence significantly increased the risk of conversion to psychosis. The research also found that alcohol use weakened the relationship between cannabis use and conversion to psychosis.
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Oral health professionals can play an important role in helping patients adopt good health behaviours. This review summarises 7 systematic reviews, finding that the strongest evidence is for smoking cessation and dietary interventions delivered by dental professionals.
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Marcus Munafò appraises a recent cross-sectional survey, which looks at associations between e-cigarette access and smoking and drinking behaviours in teenagers.
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Akshay Nair summarises a recent systematic review and meta-analysis of modifiable predictors of dementia in mild cognitive impairment. The meta-analysis finds that diabetes and the presence of any neuropsychiatric symptoms significantly predicted the conversion of mild cognitive impairment to dementia.
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Beware underpowered observational studies! Marcus Munafò helps us understand why a recent BMJ study on all cause mortality and age specific alcohol consumption is not as simple as the newspapers would have us believe.
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Sally Adams summarises a new BMJ systematic review and meta-analysis of working hours and alcohol use, which finds a link between longer working hours and risky alcohol consumption.
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Olivia Maynard reports on a recent Cochrane review that investigates talking therapies for reducing alcohol consumption in illicit drug users. The reviewers found no differences in the effectiveness of different psychotherapies (motivational interviewing, brief interventions, CBT) and insufficient evidence to draw any meaningful conclusions.
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Mark Horowitz summarises the new WHO and UCL Institute of Health Equity (Michael Marmot) report and research paper on social determinants of mental health. He concludes that it’s time to focus on the root causes of mental distress, namely poverty, unemployment, poor education and social isolation.
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Andrew Jones appraises a recent study of mortality and life expectancy of people with alcohol use disorders in Denmark, Finland and Sweden, which provides some useful insight into the impact of hazardous alcohol use.
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This new review investigated the effect of alcohol on 23 cancer types. They included 572 case-control and cohort studies and using meta-analysis and a dose–response meta-regression model found relative risks for heavy drinkers compared with nondrinkers and occasional drinkers were 5.13 for oral and pharyngeal cancer, 4.95 for oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma, 1.44 for colorectal, 2.65 for laryngeal and 1.61 for breast cancer.
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