An assessment of drug and substance abuse prevalence: a cross-sectional study among undergraduates in selected southwestern universities in Nigeria.

Objective: This cross-sectional study aimed to assess the prevalence and awareness of drug and substance abuse among undergraduates in four southwestern universities in Nigeria.

Methods: The sample of 400 students included 100 male and female students in the 15- to 29-year age range from each of the four selected universities in southwest Nigeria between December 2019 and June 2020. Descriptive statistics and Pearson chi-square tests were used for data analysis using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS).

Free Radical Mediated Oxidative Degradation of Carotenes and Xanthophylls.

This article reviews the excited-state quenching, pro-vitamin A activity and anticarcinogenicity of carotenes and xanthophylls in relation to their chemical structures. Excited-state quenching improved with the length of the conjugated chain structure. Pro-vitamin A activity was dependent on the presence of at least one beta-ionyl ring structure.

Functionalized Benzimidazole Scaffolds: Privileged Heterocycle for Drug Design in Therapeutic Medicine.

Benzimidazole derivatives are crucial structural scaffolds found in diverse libraries of biologically active compounds which are therapeutically useful agents in drug discovery and medicinal research. They are structural isosteres of naturally occurring nucleotides, which allows them to interact with the biopolymers of living systems. Hence, there is a need to couple the latest information with the earlier documentations to understand the current status of the benzimidazole nucleus in medicinal chemistry research.