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MONDAY, Dec. 23, 2024 -- Substance use among adolescents has continued to hold steady at lowered levels for the fourth year in a row, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Monitoring the Future Survey. The Monitoring the Future survey, conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, included 24,257 surveys (February through June 2024) from students in eighth, 10th, and 12th grades, enrolled across 272 public and private schools in the United States. Results showed alcohol use remained stable for eighth graders, with 12.9 percent reporting use in the previous 12 months, and declined for 10th and 12th graders (26.1 percent in 2024 versus 30.6 percent in 2023 for 10th grade, and 41.7 versus 45.7 percent, respectively, for 12th grade). Nicotine vaping remained steady for eighth graders (9.6 percent) and 12th graders (21.0 percent) and declined among 10th graders to 15.4 percent reporting use in the previous 12 months versus 17.6 percent in 2023. Nicotine pouch use remained stable for eighth graders (0.6 percent), but increased among the two older grades (10th grade: 3.4 percent versus 1.9 percent in 2023; 12th grade: 5.9 and 2.9 percent, respectively). Eighth and 10th graders reported stable cannabis use (7.2 and 15.9 percent, respectively), while past 12-month cannabis use declined among 12th graders (25.8 percent versus 29.0 percent in 2023). Use of any other illicit drug (past-year use of cocaine, heroin, and misuse of prescription drugs) declined among eighth graders (3.4 percent versus 4.6 percent in 2023) and remained stable for 10th and 12th graders (4.4 and 6.5 percent, respectively). Abstaining from marijuana, alcohol, and nicotine in the past 30 days remained stable for eighth graders (89.5 percent) and increased for the two older grades (10th: 80.2 percent versus 76.9 percent in 2023; 12th: 67.1 percent versus 62.6 percent in 2023). "This trend in the reduction of substance use among teenagers is unprecedented," Nora D. Volkow, M.D., director of NIH National Institute on Drug Abuse, said in a statement. "We must continue to investigate factors that have contributed to this lowered risk of substance use to tailor interventions to support the continuation of this trend." More Information Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.

THURSDAY, Dec. 19, 2024 -- After years of decline, U.S. life expectancy is finally on the rise again for the first time since 2019, new government research shows. This turnaround was driven in part by a decline in drug overdose deaths, which had risen dramatically as a result of the opioid epidemic, according to a second report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That includes the first reduction in OD deaths caused by powerful synthetic opioids like fentanyl and tramadol, researchers said. “The age-adjusted rate for drug overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone decreased from 2022 to 2023, the first such decrease since the large increases that began in 2013,” concluded the research team led by Matthew Garnett , an injury epidemiologist and statistician with the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). “The rate also decreased for deaths involving natural and semisynthetic opioids and heroin between 2022 and 2023,” the team added. Life expectancy at birth in 2023 was 78.4 years for the total population, an increase of 0.9 years from 77.5 in 2022, CDC researchers reported. For men, life expectancy increased 1 year, from 74.8 in 2022 to 75.8 in 2023. Meanwhile, women saw a 0.9-year increase, from 80.2 in 2022 to 81.1 in 2023. “From 2022 to 2023, age-adjusted death rates decreased for 9 of the 10 leading causes of death,” wrote the life expectancy research team led by Elizabeth Arias , a health scientist with the NCHS. Deaths due to heart disease, accidental injury, stroke, respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, kidney disease, liver disease and COVID-19 all fell significantly between 2022 and 2023, researchers found. The rate of cancer deaths also went down, but not significantly, the report says. The end of the pandemic likely contributed to the increase in life expectancy, researchers said. “The most notable change was for COVID-19, which dropped from the 4th leading cause in 2022 to the 10th leading cause in 2023,” the researchers wrote. Overall, COVID deaths decreased more than 73% between 2022 and 2023, falling from 44.5 deaths to 11.9 deaths per 100,000, researchers said. A decrease in drug OD deaths also contributed to improved life expectancy. The rate of drug overdose deaths fell from 32.6 per 100,000 in 2022 to 31.3 per 100,000 in 2023, researchers said. Drug OD deaths are considered accidental injury deaths. These results jibe with statistics released last week by the CDC, which reported that drug OD deaths had decreased 17% between July 2023 and July 2024. However, the OD death rate is still 3.5 times what it was in 2003, when 8.9 people for every 100,000 died by drug overdose. Drug OD deaths related to synthetic opioids declined by 2.2% between 2022 and 2023, results show -- the first significant decline in OD deaths related to synthetic opioids like fentanyl since 2003, researchers added. Drug overdose deaths related to natural opioids like morphine, oxycodone and hydrocodone also declined 17.1%, between 2022 and 2023, and OD deaths caused by heroin decreased 33.3%. However, OD death rates for cocaine increased by 4.9% between 2022 and 2023, and OD deaths from stimulants like methamphetamine increased by 1.9%, researchers said. Lastly, infants did not seem to benefit from the declining death rates, researchers found. “The infant mortality rate of 560.2 infant deaths per 100,000 live births in 2023 was not significantly different from the rate in 2022,” the researchers wrote. The ten leading causes of infant death in 2023 -- birth defects, low birth weight, sudden infant death syndrome, unintentional injuries, maternal complications, bacterial sepsis of newborn, cord and placental complications, respiratory distress of newborn, intrauterine hypoxia and birth asphyxia, and diseases of the circulatory system -- accounted for more than 65% of all infant deaths, researchers concluded. Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.