Alcoholics app

BACKGROUND: Various dietary strategies for managing irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) target mechanisms such as brain-gut interactions, osmotic actions, microbial gas production, and local immune activity. These pathophysiological mechanisms are diverse, making it unclear which foods trigger IBS symptoms for a substantial proportion of patients. AIM: To identify associations between foods and gastrointestinal symptoms. METHODS: From the mySymptoms smartphone app, we collected anonymized diaries of food intake and symptoms (abdominal pain, diarrhea, bloating, and gas)...

Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) hydrogels are water-rich, three-dimensional (3D) network materials that are similar to the tissue structure of living organisms. This feature gives hydrogels a wide range of potential applications, including drug delivery systems, articular cartilage regeneration, and tissue engineering. Due to the large amount of water contained in hydrogels, achieving hydrogels with comprehensive properties remains a major challenge, especially for isotropic hydrogels. This study innovatively prepares a multiscale-reinforced PVA hydrogel from molecular-level coupling to nanoscale enhancement by chemically cross-linking poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) and in situ assembled aromatic polyamide nanofibers (ANFs)...

BACKGROUND: The high prevalence of cannabis use among young adults poses substantial global health concerns due to the associated acute and long-term health and psychosocial risks. Digital modalities, including websites, digital platforms, and mobile apps, have emerged as promising tools to enhance the accessibility and availability of evidence-based interventions for young adults for cannabis use. However, existing reviews do not consider young adults specifically, combine cannabis-related outcomes with those of many other substances in their meta-analytical results, and do not solely target interventions for cannabis use...

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the effectiveness of a school-based multiple health behaviour change e-health intervention for modifying risk factors for chronic disease (secondary outcomes). STUDY DESIGN: Cluster randomised controlled trial. SETTING, PARTICIPANTS: Students (at baseline [2019]: year 7, 11-14 years old) at 71 Australian public, independent, and Catholic schools. INTERVENTION: Health4Life: an e-health school-based multiple health behaviour change intervention for reducing increases in the six major behavioural risk factors for chronic disease: physical inactivity, poor diet, excessive recreational screen time, poor sleep, and use of alcohol and tobacco...

Alcohol misuse - defined as consuming more than 14 units of alcohol per week - is a well-established problem among veterans. This study investigated the change in quality of life among help-seeking UK veterans who completed a 28-day brief alcohol intervention delivered via a digital smartphone application (called DrinksRation) and have previously sought clinical help for a mental health disorder. This study was a secondary outcome analysis of data collected during a randomised control trial. In total, 123 UK veterans participated in the study and were randomly allocated to either the intervention or control arm...

IMPORTANCE: Alcohol use is prevalent among university students. Mobile instant messaging apps could enhance the effectiveness of an alcohol brief intervention (ABI), but the evidence is scarce. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effectiveness of an ABI plus 3 months of mobile chat-based instant messaging support for alcohol reduction in university students at risk of alcohol use disorder. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: In this randomized clinical trial, 772 students at risk of alcohol use disorder (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test [AUDIT] score ≥8) were recruited from 8 universities in Hong Kong between October 15, 2020, and May 12, 2022...

BACKGROUND: Sexual minority cisgender men and transgender (SMMT) individuals, particularly emerging adults (aged 18-34 years), often report hazardous drinking. Given that alcohol use increases the likelihood of HIV risk behaviors, and HIV disproportionately affects SMMT individuals, there is a need to test interventions that reduce hazardous alcohol use and subsequent HIV risk behaviors among this population. Ecological momentary interventions (EMIs), which use mobile phones to deliver risk reduction messages based on current location and behaviors, can help to address triggers that lead to drinking in real time...

BACKGROUND: While ecological momentary assessment (EMA) is commonly used to study social contexts and social influence in the real world, EMA almost exclusively relies on participant self-report of present circumstances, including the proximity to influential peers. There is the potential for developing a proximity sensing approach that uses small Bluetooth beacons and smartphone-based detection and data collection to collect information about interactions between individuals passively in real time...

BACKGROUND: Data examining the impact of sex on liver transplant (LT) outcomes are limited. It is clear that further research into sex-related differences in transplant patients is necessary to identify areas for improvement. Elucidation of these differences may help to identify specific areas of focus to improve on the organ matching process, as well as the peri- and post-operative care of these patients. AIM: To utilize data from a high-volume Eurotransplant center to compare characteristics of male and female patients undergoing liver transplant and assess asso ciation between sex-specific variables with short- and long-term post-transplant outcomes...

Patients with inflammatory liver diseases, particularly alcohol-associated liver disease and metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD), have higher incidence of infections and mortality rate due to sepsis. The current focus in the development of drugs for MAFLD is the resolution of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis and prevention of progression to cirrhosis. In patients with cirrhosis or alcoholic hepatitis, sepsis is a major cause of death. As the metabolic center and a key immune tissue, liver is the guardian, modifier, and target of sepsis...

OBJECTIVE: Caregivers raising children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) have limited access to evidence-based supports. This single-arm feasibility trial assesses the Families Moving Forward (FMF) Connect app to determine readiness for a larger randomized controlled trial (RCT). METHODS: Eligibility for this online trial included caregivers of children (ages 3-12) with FASD residing in the United States. Caregivers received FMF Connect for 12 weeks on their personal smartphones (iOS or Android)...

BACKGROUND: University attendance represents a transition period for students that often coincides with the emergence of mental health and substance use challenges. Digital interventions have been identified as a promising means of supporting students due to their scalability, adaptability, and acceptability. Minder is a mental health and substance use mobile app that was codeveloped with university students. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to examine the effectiveness of the Minder mobile app in improving mental health and substance use outcomes in a general population of university students...

For many cancers there are only a few well-established risk factors. Here, we use summary data from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in a Mendelian randomisation (MR) phenome-wide association study (PheWAS) to identify potentially causal relationships for over 3,000 traits. Our outcome datasets comprise 378,142 cases across breast, prostate, colorectal, lung, endometrial, oesophageal, renal, and ovarian cancers, as well as 485,715 controls. We complement this analysis by systematically mining the literature space for supporting evidence...

OBJECTIVES: This study aims to deliver a novel web-app-based electronic Screening and Brief Intervention to patients with alcohol-related facial trauma and assess changes in at-risk drinking behaviors and attitudes toward their drinking and alcohol-related trauma. STUDY DESIGN, SETTING, AND SAMPLE: This was a 2-arm parallel randomized controlled trial. Participants who had sustained alcohol-related facial injuries were recruited from 3 Australian hospitals. RESULTS: Fifty-six participants were enrolled and randomized initially with 45 participants completing the questionnaire at baseline and 3-month follow-up...

A network meta-analysis (NMA) including randomized controlled trials (RCTs) was conducted to evaluate the effects of different interventions on smoking cessation. Studies were collected from online databases including PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. Eligible studies were further examined in the NMA to compare the effect of 14 interventions on smoking cessation. Thirty-four studies were examined in the NMA, including a total of 14 interventions and 28 733 participants...

BACKGROUND: Men who have sex with men (MSM) are disproportionally affected by HIV and drug and alcohol use; however, few effective HIV prevention interventions for MSM who use substances exist. Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment is an early intervention for non-treatment-seeking individuals with problematic substance use and for timely referral to treatment for those with substance use disorders. Electronic screening and brief interventions (e-SBIs) reduce implementation challenges...

Heavy drinking among people living with HIV (PLWH) reduces ART adherence and worsens health outcomes. Lengthy interventions are not feasible in most HIV care settings, and patients infrequently follow referrals to outside treatment. Utilizing visual and video features of smartphone technology, we developed HealthCall as an electronic means of increasing patient involvement in a brief intervention to reduce drinking and improve ART adherence. The objective of the current study is to evaluate the efficacy of HealthCall to improve ART adherence among PLWH who drink heavily when paired with two brief interventions: the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA) Clinician's Guide (CG) or Motivational Interviewing (MI)...

Due to the typical volatility of gaseous pollutant methyl mercaptan (CH3 SH), the development of a facile, reliable, and accurate onsite environmental surveillance of highly toxic CH3 SH faces many challenges, but it is critical to environmental atmosphere assessment and safeguarding public health. Here, we prepared a novel bimetallic carbon dots (Fe&Cu@CDs) nanozyme with high peroxidase-mimicking activity to design a portable hydrogel kit for onsite visual H2 O2 -self-supplying enzymatic cascade catalytic colorimetric and photothermal signal synergistic amplification dual-modal monitoring of CH3 SH in atmospheric environment...

OBJECTIVE: Alcohol expectancies are beliefs people have about the likelihood of experiencing various positive or negative consequences related to alcohol use. Expectancies have most commonly been treated as trait-like characteristics of individuals, but some researchers have assessed expectancies as state-level characteristics that vary within-persons across days. Previous work developed a 13-item daily alcohol expectancies measure. This study evaluated an expanded version of that measure that includes 10 additional expectancy items...

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Maintenance of abstinence in alcohol-related liver disease (ARLD) is a major unmet therapeutic need. Digital therapeutics can deliver ongoing behavioural therapy, in real-time, for chronic conditions. The aim of this project was to develop and clinically test AlcoChange, a novel digital therapeutic for ARLD. METHODS: AlcoChange was developed using validated behaviour change techniques and a digital alcohol breathalyser. This was an open-label, single-centre study...