Från och med januari 2010 publiceras det internationella medicinska nyhetsbrevet FETAL ALCOHOL FORUM – som utges av brittiska National Organisation on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome - på denna bloggplats. Hittills har fyra nyhetsbrev publicerats och vart och ett innehåller ett stort antal vetenskapliga artiklar och mycket annat material, främst riktat till professionella på området. Varje nyhetsbrev omfattar upp till 120 abstracts och flera hela artiklar. Flera av världens absolut främsta forskare bidrar till innehållet!

Klicka på länkarna E-letter till respektive utgåva till höger. Nyhetsbreven är i form av PDF filer som du kan ladda ner till din egen dator.

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Integrating Research, Policy and Promising Practice Around the World: A Catalyst for Change

The 3rd International Conference on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder - PowerPoint Presentations! These files from the conference are now available for download.

Några av titlarna:

• Long term Follow-Up Study of children with FASD in Young AdulthoodHans-Ludwig Spohr



• Developing an Adult FASD Diagnostic Clinic: The Victoria BC ExperienceJonathan Down, Grace Gerry, Kathy Horne



• Prenatal Diagnosis of FASD – Is It Possible?Andrew D. Hull



• Status of FASD Prevention in Nine Areas in France, and Recommendation to Support FASD Prevention in FranceDenis Lamblin, Sylvie Kunchten

Se alla presentationerna här >>>


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Eye test could help diagnose fetal alcohol syndrome

James Reynolds, a professor at the Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont. has developed a test that he believes can pinpoint those children with the disorder.
Reynolds has found that children exposed to alcohol in utero have slower eye movements than healthy children.

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20th Annual ENTIS meeting

ENTIS, European Network of Teratology Information Services,

The general objective for ENTIS is to coordinate and collaborate the activities of the different Teratology Information Services (TIS), and to collect and evaluate data in order to contribute to the primary prevention of birth defects and developmental disorders.

The 20th meeting of European Network of Teratology Information Services (ENTIS) will be organised by Servizio di Tossicologica Perinatale and will take place in Firenze, Italy, from May 29 – 31, 2009.

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Läs mer >>>

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CTIS Pregnancy Risk Information Line

The CTIS Pregnancy Risk Information Line has a new website! We've worked hard to become more user friendly and accessible. Please take a few moments to visit our new site.

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New NIAAA site on drinking

Do you enjoy a drink now and then? Many of us do, often when socializing with friends and family. Drinking can be beneficial or harmful, depending on your age and health status, and, of course, how much you drink.

For anyone who drinks, this site offers valuable, research-based information. What do you think about taking a look at your drinking habits and how they may affect your health? Rethinking Drinking can help you get started.

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Binge Drinking During Pregnancy and Risk of Seizures in Childhood: A Study Based on the Danish National Birth Cohort

Results showed that exposure to binge drinking episodes during pregnancy was not associated with an increased risk of seizure disorders in children, except for those exposed at 11–16 gestational weeks. These children had a 3.15-fold increased risk of neonatal seizures (95% confidence interval: 1.37, 7.25) and a 1.81-fold increased risk of epilepsy (95% confidence interval: 1.13, 2.90). These findings suggest that maternal binge drinking during a specific time period of pregnancy may be associated with an increased risk of specific seizure disorders in the offspring. The results are exploratory, however, and need to be replicated.


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35th Annual Alcohol Epidemiology Symposium of the Kettil Bruun Society (KBS 2009) in Copenhagen, June 1-5, 2009

The primary purpose of the conference is to provide a forum where researchers involved in studies on alcohol can exchange ideas about their ongoing research. The scope of the symposium includes studies of determinants and consequences of drinking, drinking practices, attitudes and the social and institutional responses to drinking related harms. Empirical research, theoretical papers and reviews of the literature are welcome. Epidemiology is broadly construed and includes research in a variety of disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, criminology, economics, history and other disciplines.

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Binge drinking comes to France

Until a few years ago, many French people were convinced that their cafe society and laissez-faire approach to alcohol made them immune to binge drinking.
But times, and drinking habits, have changed. The government recognises the problem and plans to raise the legal age for buying alcohol from 16 to 18 next year.
In some parts of Paris, municipal authorities have already targeted teenage drunkenness by declaring "dry areas" where drinking on the streets is banned at night.

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Moms-to-Be Who Drink May Damage Fetus' White Matter

Drinking alcohol during pregnancy can damage white matter in a fetus' frontal and occipital lobes, which play a major role in executive function and visual processing. The finding may help explain problems seen in infants whose mothers drink during pregnancy, a new study says.
"The brain's white matter is made up of nerve bundles that transfer information between brain regions," study corresponding author Susanna L. Fryer, a researcher at San Diego State University's Center for Behavioral Teratology, said in a news release.

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Published Reports Inaccurate Concerning Alcohol Consumption During Pregnancy

A national alcohol research group is concerned that the media's misinterpretation of a recent British research study could encourage pregnant women to be more at ease with temperate alcohol consumption.
Some media reports erroneously stated that the study by The University College London researchers revealed that light drinking by pregnant women could be beneficial to their babies. Other articles said light drinking during pregnancy would not affect the behavior or mental acuity of babies born to drinking mothers.

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The Fatal Link - The Connection Between School Shooters and the Brain Damage from Prenatal Exposure to Alcohol

Jody Allen Crowe presents a compelling look at the silent epidemic of prenatal exposure to alcohol and the undeniable connection to school shooters. He was an elementary student in 1966 when, in his hometown high school, David Black became the first adolescent school shooter in the nation. Memories of that day stayed with the author throughout his career as an educator on reservations across the nation. When the Red Lake High School became the scene of a school shooting in 2005, Crowe was uniquely positioned to see the similarities between his hometown shooter and the Red Lake shooter, as well as the evidence of brain damage from prenatal exposure to alcohol in both cases. The Fatal Link provides a glimpse into Crowe’s twenty years of experience with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and reveals the connection between school shooters and their mother’s drinking patterns.

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Apoptosis Inhibitors Prevent Not Only Cell Death, But Also Play A Role In Cell Migration

One of the defining characteristics of cancer cells is that they systematically prevent programmed cell death (apoptosis), with which the body guards itself against the proliferation of defective cells. In order to do this, they express so-called apoptosis inhibitors (IAPs) among other proteins. Many of the cancer drugs currently undergoing clinical trials target IAPs, since if the levels of IAPs are reduced, tumour cells will be destroyed by the body's own self-protecting mechanism or by the chemotherapeutic drugs. However, as a research group from the Goethe University in Frankfurt, working with scientists at the Universities of Würzburg and Philadelphia have recently discovered, IAPs also have another life: they control cell migration.

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How Mental Health Care Affects Outcomes For Foster Children

A new study co-written by Jung Min Park and Joseph P. Ryan, professors in the School of Social Work at the University of Illinois, followed 5,978 children in foster care in Illinois for several years to determine whether these children’s placement and permanency outcomes were affected by their histories of intensive mental health treatment. The statewide sample included all children and adolescents 3-18 years of age who entered foster care for the first time between 1997 and 2001. They were observed through June 2005.

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Effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on hippocampal volume, verbal learning, and verbal and spatial recall in late childhood

Results revealed smaller left hippocampi and poorer verbal learning and verbal and spatial recall performance in children with FASDs than controls, as well as positive correlations between selective memory indices and hippocampal volumes only in the FASD group. Additionally, hippocampal volumes increased significantly with age in controls only, suggesting that PAE may be associated with long-term abnormalities in hippocampal development that may contribute to impaired verbal learning and verbal and spatial recall.


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Even moderate drinking in pregnancy harmful

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Children born to women who have as little as one drink a week during pregnancy are more likely to have symptoms of behavior problems as teens, according to research published this month in the journal Pediatrics. To better understand the independent role of alcohol exposure in pregnancy, Disney and her colleagues looked at 1,252 17-year-olds enrolled in the Minnesota Twins Family Study and their parents.

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The 3rd International Conference on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder

FASD is a window through which to view the state of our world. While it has a profound impact on individuals, families and all aspects of society, it is also a stimulus for change. This international conference will provide a forum to discuss and examine current research, policy and practice that will assist parents, caregivers, service systems and governments as they strive to prevent FASD and to provide a range of supports for people living with it. The emphasis of this conference will be the practical application of various forms of research covering these broad areas:

Biomedical
Clinical Diagnosis & Assessment
Health
Legal, justice, correction
Social Services
Family
Education
Community

Läs mer >>>

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Study: Paying more for alcohol saves lives

Each time the state of Alaska raised its alcoholic beverage tax, fewer deaths were caused by or related to alcohol, according to the study that examined 28 years of data.

When Alaska raised its alcohol tax in 1983, deaths caused by or related to alcohol dropped 29 percent. A 2002 tax increase was followed by an 11 percent reduction, according to the study published in the American Journal of Public Health.

"Increasing alcohol taxes saves lives; that's the bottom line," said the study's lead author, Dr. Alexander Wagenaar, a professor at the University of Florida's Department of Epidemiology and Health Policy Research. "The tax increase caused some reduction in consumption of alcohol. The reduction saved lives."

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Warning labels on alcoholic drinks soon law (Sydafrika)

IN less than four months‘ time all alcoholic drinks will come with a warning label.
Anti-alcohol lobby groups are happy about the move, but industry insiders fear it is just the tip of the iceberg in the government‘s fast-tightening grip on the multi-billion rand industry.

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Drinking beer dangerous

Namibia Breweries Limited (NBL) has responded to South Africa’s new law, which requires all alcoholic beverages to carry a health warning message on their labels, by placing hazard signs on its intoxicating products.
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