Development of country-wide strategies to reduce the alcohol abuse

Evidence shows that in Iran alcohol abuse rate may be of concern, especially among the youth. The mental and social health and addiction Department of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education has designed a plan to prevent, treat, and rehabilitate the patients abusing alcohol in a time period of 2011-2015. In a 6-month period, three guiding committees of experts in the field of alcohol abuse reviewed the literature. The meetings of the steering committee were held in order to collect the comments of the policy-makers in recognition of the problem, orientation, and administration procedures for the suggested strategies. The first input was discussed in the committee meeting. In the orientation phase, intervention strategies were suggested whose base was the evaluation of the previous international guidelines. In the final phase, the suggested strategies and challenges and their possible solutions were criticized. Finally, using these strategies, appropriate interventions were defined. Preventing alcohol supply, school- and community-based prevention efforts, monitoring and vigilance were defined as primary prevention. While secondary and tertiary prevention are defined to be the treating and rehabilitating services for the alcohol abusers. We hope by using this strategy we will be able to control alcohol abuse in our country. The first step to reach this aim is done by breaking the taboo of giving alcohol-related information and news using media and educational programs especially to the young population

Parallel increases in heterochromatin variants and chromosome damages in drugs addicts

Polymorphisms of the size of heterochromatin regions and abnormalities of chromosomes have been well documented in human genome; they consist of DNA sequences that are not transcribed. The prime aim of the present study was to evaluate the heterochromatin polymorphism and numerical and structural abnormalities associated with chromosomes in drug addicts. No data exists in Iran regarding the cytogenetic characteristics of drug addiction lymphocytes. Therefore, cytogenetic investigations were performed in 93 drug addiction lymphocytes and 93 normal controls. This randomized collected study was conducted on 93 consecutive drug addiction individuals and 93 healthy individuals in Loghman and private hospitals, Tehran, Iran between the years 2007-2009. By applying Barium Hydroxide saline Giemsa [BSC] method, the variant heterochromatin polymorphism of chromosomes 1, 9 and 16 on lymphocyte cultures were evaluated. Cytogenetic analysis was performed in drug addicts' lymphocytes cultures.Constitutive heterochromatin polymorphism of chromosomes 1 in drug addicts revealed statistical significant when compared with chromosome of healthy controls [P=0.004]. The differences were significant for chromosome 9 [P=0.029], it was 94.1% in drug addiction and 5.9% in the control group [P=0.196]. The differences were also significant for chromosome 16: it was 91.9% in addicts and 8.1% in the control group [P=0.052]. Also the frequency of partial and complete inversion did not show any significant differences between the drugs addicts and the control group. The occurrence of chromosomal defects including, chromatid break [12 addicts], chromatid gap [8 addicts], dicentric [2 addicts], was higher in our observation. Our constitutive heterochromatin polymorphism blocks and chromosomal abnormalities in drugs addicts' chromosome may provide an opportunity to serve as a marker for the detection and characterization of the damages chromosomes in drug addicts

Diagnosis of opium swallowed in body packers with CT scan: determination hounsfield unit of the packets

The aim of this study is the report of our experience in diagnosis of the opium body packers with CT scan. For 12 cases that confessed to opium packet ingestion, we did abdominal and pelvic CT scan without contrast and evaluated the presence, number and location of opium packets and also measured the density of packets in Hounsfield unit [HU]. Mean age of our cases was 28.2 +/- 5.9 years [ranging 17-35 years]. Eleven [91.6%] of patients were male and only one case was female. In all patients, the packets were visualized in gastrointestinal [GI] lumen by CT scan. The mean of minimum HU was 163.8 +/- 19.6 and the mean of maximum HU was 205.3 +/- 32.8. We had mortality in an eighteen years old female due to opium overdose. CT scan could be a suitable imaging modality in identifying opium packets similar that reported for cocaine and heroin