Temporal trends in smoking and nicotine dependence in relation to co-occurring substance use in the United States, 2005-2016.

Background: Despite an overall decline in tobacco use in the United States, secular trends of smoking and nicotine dependence with co-occurring substance use are not well characterized.

Methods: We examined self-reported tobacco and other substance use in 22,245 participants age 21-59 in the United States from six waves of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Using Joinpoint regression, we assessed secular trends of smoking and nicotine dependence as a function of co-occurring use of alcohol, prescription opioids, marijuana/hashish, cocaine/heroin/methamphetamine, or other injection drug use.

Timing of mortality in mothers with recurrent convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol and their children, from childbirth to child age 17.

Background: We tested variation in the timing of child and maternal mortality associated with severe maternal AUD, as represented by recurrent arrests for driving under the influence of alcohol (rDUI).

Methods: rDUI mothers (N = 1614) and Controls with no alcohol-related driving offenses (N = 109,928) who gave birth in Missouri from 2000 to 2004 were identified using vital records. Propensity score matching adjusted for birth record measures including delayed prenatal care, smoking during pregnancy, relationship with reproductive partner [married/unmarried, paternity acknowledged/unacknowledged], partner DUI status from driving records, and for socioeconomic characteristics of maternal residential census tract at birth derived from census data.

Marital status, partner acknowledgment of paternity, and neighborhood influences on smoking during first pregnancy: findings across race/ethnicity in linked administrative and census data.

Background: Improving prediction of cigarette smoking during pregnancy (SDP), including differences by race/ethnicity and geography, is necessary for interventions to achieve greater and more equitable SDP reductions.

Methods: Using individual-level data on singleton first births, 2010-2017 (N = 182,894), in a US state with high SDP rates, we predicted SDP risk as a function of reproductive partner relationship (marital status, paternity acknowledgement), maternal and residential census tract sociodemographics, and census tract five-year SDP rate.

Results: SDP prevalence was 12.

Bioremediation of a Common Product of Food Processing by a Human Gut Bacterium.

Dramatic increases in processed food consumption represent a global health threat. Maillard reaction products (MRPs), which are common in processed foods, form upon heat-induced reaction of amino acids with reducing sugars and include advanced glycation end products with deleterious health effects. To examine how processed foods affect the microbiota, we fed gnotobiotic mice, colonized with 54 phylogenetically diverse human gut bacterial strains, defined sugar-rich diets containing whey as the protein source or a matched amino acid mixture.

Elevated maternal and child mortality among women with multiple DUI convictions compared with socio-demographically matched controls.

Aims: To assess whether having multiple convictions for driving while under the influence of alcohol (MDUI) in women is a risk factor for maternal, infant and child mortality.

Design: Retrospective cohort design using record linkage, comparing women with MDUI convictions with propensity-matched women without alcohol-related driving offences ascertained through state records, on rates of maternal, infant and child mortality.

Setting: Missouri, United States.

The interaction of sociodemographic risk factors and measures of nicotine dependence in predicting maternal smoking during pregnancy.

Background: Understanding differences in nicotine dependence assessments' ability to predict smoking cessation is complicated by variation in quit attempt contexts. Pregnancy reduces this variation, as each pregnant smoker receives the same strong cessation incentive. Cigarette smoking during pregnancy (SDP) provides a powerful paradigm for analyzing the interplay between nicotine dependence measures and sociodemographics in predicting cessation failure.

A novel training approach to activate alternative behaviors for smoking in depressed smokers.

The current research developed and tested a novel training strategy to alter the implicit associations between alternative behaviors to smoking and negative affect, and explored its effects on depressive symptoms and on smoking behavior as part of a quit attempt. Using a joystick, participants identified as smokers with depressive symptoms were trained to approach alternative behaviors to smoking in the context of negative affect. Specifically, in the experimental condition, participants were trained to avoid smoking-related targets and to approach alternative activities.