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Biomedical subjects

Benjamin Taylor

Publications and source records attributed to Benjamin Taylor.

11 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2007

Alcohol-attributable morbidity and resulting health care costs in Canada in 2002: recommendations for policy and prevention.

OBJECTIVE: Alcohol is one of the most important risk factors for burden of disease, particularly in high-income countries such as Canada. The purpose of this article was to estimate the number of hospitalizations, hospital days, and the resulting costs attributable to alcohol for Canada in 2002. METHOD: Exposure distribution was taken from the Canadian Addiction Survey and corrected for per capita consumption from production and sales. For chronic disease, risk relations were taken from the published literature and combined with exposure to calculate age- and gender-specific alcohol-attributable fractions. For injury, alcohol-attributable fractions were taken directly from available statistics. Data on the most responsible diagnosis, length of stay for hospitalizations, and costs were obtained from the national Canadian databases. RESULTS: For Canada in 2002, there were 195,970 alcohol-related diagnoses among acute care hospitalizations, 2,058 alcohol-attributable psychiatric hospitalizations, and 183,589 alcohol-attributable admissions to specialized treatment centers. These accounted for 1,246,945 hospital days in acute care facilities, 54,114 hospital days in psychiatric hospitals, and 3,018,688 hospital days in specialized treatment centers (inpatient and outpatient). The main causes of alcohol-attributable morbidity were neuropsychiatric conditions, cardiovascular disease, and unintentional injuries. In total, Can. $2.29 billion were spent on alcohol-related health care. CONCLUSIONS: Alcohol poses a heavy burden of disease as well as a financial strain on Canadian society. However, there are evidence-based effective and cost-effective policy and legislative interventions as well as measures to better enforce these laws.

Acute Disease↗
PubMed2006

When risk factors combine: the interaction between alcohol and smoking for aerodigestive cancer, coronary heart disease, and traffic and fire injury.

BACKGROUND: Alcohol and tobacco are responsible for a significant amount of burden of disease, but some diseases may be a result of the interaction between these two risk factors. METHODS: Systematic literature review identified articles on the interaction of alcohol and smoking on a number of outcomes related to both risk behaviours. RESULTS: The interaction of smoking and alcohol significantly increases risk for aerodigestive cancers, and may increase risk for traffic injury and fire injury, but there were very few quality studies on injury. The indication that the cardioprotective effect of alcohol on coronary heart disease is only valid for smokers, but this result is inconclusive because of small evidence base. CONCLUSIONS: The interaction between smoking and alcohol consumption seems to be responsible for a significant amount of disease. Unfortunately, little is known on the mechanisms and details of this interaction on disease outcomes. Future studies, especially for coronary heart disease and injury outcomes, are warranted.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMed2006

Risperidone pretreatment prevents elevated locomotor activity following neonatal hippocampal lesions.

Long-standing behavioral abnormalities emerge after puberty in rats following neonatal hippocampal lesion, providing a developmental model of abnormal rat behavior that may have predictive validity in identifying compounds effective in treating symptoms of schizophrenia. We sought to test the predictive validity of the neonatal hippocampal lesion model in identifying preventive treatment for first-episode psychosis. We determined the effect of risperidone, recently studied for prevention of first-episode psychosis, on the development of elevated locomotor activity following neonatal hippocampal lesions. Rat pups received hippocampal or sham lesions on postnatal day 7, followed by treatment with risperidone or vehicle from postnatal days 35 to 56. Locomotor activity in response to novelty, amphetamine, and nocturnal locomotion were determined on postnatal day 57. Low-dose risperidone (45 microg/kg) pretreatment prevented elevated locomotor activity in some, but not all, of the behavioral tasks following neonatal hippocampal lesions. In contrast, higher risperidone pretreatment was less effective in preventing elevated locomotor activity following neonatal hippocampal lesions. Because low risperidone dosages were also found to be effective in preventing first-episode psychosis in human studies, these data support the predictive validity of the hippocampal lesion model in identifying medications for prevention of first-episode psychosis. Additionally, these data support the use of low-dose risperidone in psychosis prevention, and suggest the possibility that higher risperidone doses could be less effective in this application.

Amphetamine↗
PubMed2006

Global burden of disease from alcohol, illicit drugs and tobacco.

The use of alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs entails considerable burden of disease: in 2000, about 4% of the global burden as measured in disability adjusted life years was attributable to each alcohol and tobacco, and 0.8% to illicit drugs. The burden of alcohol in the above statistic was calculated as net burden, i.e. incorporating the protective health effects. Tobacco use was found to be the most important of 25 risk factors for developed countries in the comparative risk assessment underlying the data. It had the highest mortality risk of all the substance use categories, especially for the elderly. Alcohol use was also important in developed countries, but constituted the most important of all risk factors in emerging economies. Alcohol use affected younger people than tobacco, both in terms of disability and mortality. The burden of disease attributable to the use of legal substances clearly outweighed the use of illegal drugs. A large part of the substance-attributable burden would be avoidable if known effective interventions were implemented.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Volume of alcohol consumption, patterns of drinking and burden of disease in the European region 2002.

AIMS: To describe the volume of alcohol consumption and patterns of drinking in the World Health Organization (WHO) European regions in 2002 and to estimate quantitatively the burden of disease attributable to alcohol in that year. METHODS: Secondary data analysis. Exposure data were taken from the WHO Comparative Risk Assessment, outcome data from the WHO Measurement and Health Information department, and used to derive three outcome measures: deaths, years of life lost (YLL) and disability adjusted life years (DALY) for 2002. All calculations were conducted according to age, sex and region. RESULTS: Alcohol consumption in the WHO regions for Europe was high, with 12.1 litres pure alcohol per capita, on average more than 100% above the global consumption. Alcohol consumption caused a considerable disease burden: 6.1% of all the deaths, 12.3% of all YLL and 10.7% of all DALY in all European regions in 2002 could be attributed to this exposure. Intentional and unintentional injuries accounted for almost 50% of all alcohol-attributable deaths and almost 44% of alcohol-attributable disease burden. Young people and men were affected the most. Geographically, the most eastern region around Russia had the highest alcohol-attributable disease burden. CONCLUSIONS: Interventions should be implemented to reduce the high burden of alcohol-attributable disease in the European regions. Given the epidemiological structure of the burden, injury prevention, including but not restricted to the prevention of traffic injuries, and specific prevention for young people should play the most important role in a comprehensive plan to reduce alcohol-attributable burden.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

School matters: drinking dimensions and their effects on alcohol-related problems among Ontario secondary school students.

AIMS: To test the hypotheses that average volume of alcohol consumption and patterns of drinking, each influence alcohol-related problems and that both act at individual and aggregate levels. METHODS: The 2003 cycle of the Ontario Student Drug Use Survey obtained self-administered questionnaires from a representative classroom-based survey of 2455 Ontario secondary school students (grades 9-12) from 74 schools, with a student completion rate of 72%. Average volume of alcohol consumption was assessed using a quantity-frequency measure. Heavy drinking occasions were operationalized by four dummy variables indicating less than monthly, monthly, weekly and daily consumption of five or more drinks per occasion, with never having a heavy drinking occasion serving as the reference group. Alcohol-related problems were measured by using seven items of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test. RESULTS: As hypothesized, both the average volume of alcohol consumption and patterns of drinking influenced alcohol-related problems at the student level, independently of each other. At the school level, both determinants significantly influenced the problems, but not when simultaneously entered into the equation. CONCLUSIONS: Future prevention of alcohol-related problems in adolescents should consider both the average volume and patterns of drinking. Both prevention and research should also try to include environmental determination of alcohol-related problems.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Moderate alcohol consumption and the gastrointestinal tract.

BACKGROUND: A high alcohol intake is significantly associated with diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, but less is known about the effects of moderate consumption, specifically moderate average volume of alcohol consumption. METHODS: A systematic computer-assisted literature review was completed in order to review current scientific knowledge surrounding this topic. RESULTS: Moderate alcohol consumption is associated with a number of gastrointestinal health risks, including liver diseases, oropharyngeal cancer, esophageal cancer and pancreatitis but may play a positive role in gastritis and cholelithiasis. CONCLUSION: Moderate alcohol consumption may play a positive or negative role in disease etiology, but the overall conclusion is that moderate alcohol intake is not a high risk factor for many of the gastrointestinal diseases associated with high levels of consumption. The etiology of alcohol diseases is also linked to patterns of drinking, so this is an important area for future research in this area.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Moderate alcohol consumption and diseases of the gastrointestinal system: a review of pathophysiological processes.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Alcohol drinking is responsible for a number of gastrointestinal diseases and cancers. Although heavy drinking episodes and chronic drinking are well linked to mechanisms of disease, moderate alcohol consumption and its effects are less well known. This review attempts to fill a gap in the literature surrounding moderate alcohol consumption. METHODS: A systematic review of the English literature using PubMed was used. RESULTS: A dose-response risk relationship exists between alcohol consumption and digestive disease risk. Acetaldehyde is the main factor in alcohol-related damage in moderate alcohol consumption and acts through numerous methods to exert damaging effects. CONCLUSION: Zero alcohol intake is recommended for lowest risk of alcohol-related digestive tract diseases and conditions. However, given the lowest overall mortality is associated with moderate drinking, moderate drinking with no bingeing episodes is recommended.

Adult↗