background: alcohol consumption is one of the main health problems in most countries. the purpose of the present study is to evaluate the reliability and validity of alcohol use disorders identification test (audit). methods: by employing the method of available sampling, 70 alcoholic patients were included as case group and 70 normal age, gender and education matched individuals were also incl...

OBJECTIVE To present the results of a systematic review of literature published between January 1, 1980, and December 31, 2000, that reports epidemiologic estimates of substance-related disorders. METHOD We conducted a literature search of substance-related epidemiologic studies, using medline and HealthSTAR databases and applying a set of predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria to ide...

Early childhood traumatic experiences, such as childhood maltreatment, are associated with an enhanced risk of adolescent and adult alcohol and substance use disorders (defined as DSM-IV alcohol or substance abuse or dependence). Maltreated children and adolescents manifest dysregulation of major biological stress response systems including adverse influences on brain development. Dysregulation...

Background: About 40 thousand newborns are delivered annually with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). It induces serious CNS complications. Methods: In a review of, the word “fetal alcohol syndrome” was searched in PubMed and Google Scholar and the retrieved articles were summarized. Results: Many studies showed that alcohol can cause more defects in fetus than heroin, cocaine and marijuana. The pos...

There was some limited use of asbestos at end of the 19th century in industrialized countries including Germany, but its consumption dramatically increased after World War II. The increase in use and exposure was followed by the discovery of high numbers of asbestos-related diseases with a mean latency period of about 38 years in Germany. The strong socio-political pressure from the asbestos in...