Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Nearly One-Third in U.S. Have Abused Alcohol

Nearly one-third of Americans abuse or become dependent on alcohol at some time in their lives, and most never seek treatment, according to a new study.

It found that 17.8 percent said they had abused alcohol and an additional 12.5 percent said they had been dependent on it at some point, for a total of 30.3 percent.

At the time of the survey 4.7 percent said they had abused alcohol in the past year, and 3.8 percent said they were alcohol-dependent in the previous 12 months.

Only 24 percent were ever treated for it, the researchers reported yesterday in the Archives of General Psychiatry. They based their findings on a survey of 43,093 U.S. adults who were questioned in person in 2001 and 2002.

"Alcohol dependence was significantly more prevalent among men, whites, Native Americans, younger and unmarried adults and those with lower incomes," Deborah S. Hasin of Columbia University Medical Center and colleagues wrote.

Most people reported developing a disorder young -- at 21 or 22, the researchers found.

All weight-loss diets have just about the same result, and none of them are great, researchers reported yesterday.

A typical diet helps people lose an average of 6 percent of their weight, typically 10 to 15 pounds, and most people put it all back on after five years. Weight-loss drugs are similarly ineffective in the long run, said Michael Dansinger of the Tufts-New England Medical Center.

"It's disappointing, but I am optimistic that we can do better in the future. We are learning some of the factors that improve the effectiveness" of diets, said Dansinger, whose study is published in today's issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The news is bad for those who hoped a gentler approach to dieting might be more effective over the long term. Programs that made people eat fewer calories worked better, as did those that involved more frequent visits to either diet groups or to a counselor's office.

But even a small, temporary weight loss can benefit health, Dansinger said. He and his colleagues looked at the results of 46 trials that included nearly 12,000 people.

Weighing in at 150 pounds or more, the biggest bird of all time couldn't just hop into the air and fly away, researchers say.

A team led by Sankar Chatterjee of Texas Tech University used computer programs designed for aircraft to analyze the probable flight characteristics of Argentavis magnificens, a giant bird that lived in South America 6 million years ago.

Like today's condors and other large birds, Argentavis would have had to rely on updrafts to remain in the air. Doing so, it could have soared for long distances, they conclude in a paper in today's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

With a wingspan of about 23 feet, Argentavis is the largest known flying bird. By measuring the size of the bones, the researchers determined how large its flight muscles would have been and calculated that it would not have been capable of takeoff or of sustained flight just by flapping its wings.

This was just about the size limit for a flying bird, Chatterjee said.

-- From News Services