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Smoke more, drink more

There is indeed a connection between smoking and alcohol - a mutually destructive one - researchers have concluded.

Exploring the popular notion that cigarette smoking prompts more drinking, researchers from Washington University Medical School and the University of Maryland Medical School have concluded that young people who smoke cigarettes are more prone to having their brains "primed" for more susceptibility to alcohol addiction. Smoking may also have the same effect in creating addiction to other drugs, the scientists say.

This tendency is most noticeable in adolescents, according to the research published in the December issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. "Ours is the first study to... establish a correlation between adolescent smoking and alcohol-use disorders (AUDs)," said Richard A. Grucza, an epidemiologist at Washington University School of Medicine and one of the study's authors, in a news release.

"Can this association be explained by the fact that smokers are heavier drinkers, or is there something else going on?," Grucza asked rhetorically. "In other words, do smokers appear to be more sensitive to the effects of alcohol?" Yes, they are, the researchers concluded.

The next step, the scientists said, was to determine what causes the effect and to develop strategies to counteract it. – (HealthDayNews)

Read more:
Stop smoking Centre

November 2006

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