Rats given THC as 'teens' use more heroin when stressed.

[palmspringsbum]

According to their studies, rats exposed to THC during the early developmental stages, had, as adults, higher self-administered heroin intake under mild stressful conditions than rats not exposed to THC during developmental stages.

Duh.

Now, they take a molecularly pure (homogenous) substance, probably synthetic, and (I assume) shoot it into rats, essentially teaching the rats to mainline. And then allege they've proven something when they stress the rats and offer them heroin and the ones they've taught to mainline use more than the ones they didn't teach to mainline?

Firstly, putting any molecularly pure substance, and particularly a synthetic one, in any organism is subjecting that organism to something it has never encountered in all of evolution. We do not encounter molecularly homogenous (pure) substances in 'nature'. Not in all of evolution.

Cannabis is a soup of some 400 organic chemicals, about 60 of which are psychoactive. Taking a single one of those 400 chemicals, even if it is by far the most prevalent (but, perhaps not the most 'potent'), and administering it to a rat or anything else is mainlining. By giving rats pure THC (synthetic or real) they are essentially teaching them to mainline.

Did they give the rats a choice? Did they have both THC and heroin there and the rats chose heroin, or did they just stress the rats they'd trained to mainline THC and then give them the choice of heroin or nothing?

Public release date: 21-Jun-2006


Contact:
Lisa Rossi
RossiL@upmc.edu
412-916-3315 (cell)

Jocelyn Uhl Duffy
UhlJH@upmc.edu
412-647-3555
412-325-6080 (June 20-22)

EurekaAlert.com

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center


Early puberty may mean anxiety, abnormal eating behaviors later

Findings of studies presented at International Congress of Neuroendocrinology June 19-22

PITTSBURGH – Going through puberty at a young age might foretell problems to come, report researchers who found early puberty is associated with abnormal eating behaviors and anxiety in young adults. Results of the study were reported at the 6th International Congress of Neuroendocrinology (ICN 2006).

Researchers who study puberty say it is more than just an awkward phase when boys and girls are primed for their sexual reproductive years as men and women. Puberty also is a delicate and dynamic time in the development of the brain, when important neural pathways essential for behavioral and cognitive functions are formed. Indeed, brains of children going through puberty are especially vulnerable to the effects of marijuana, suggest results of animal research also reported at ICN 2006, which takes place June 19 – 22 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in downtown Pittsburgh.

Summaries of the studies' findings and other research looking at what triggers puberty follow:

Early puberty associated with eating and anxiety problems as young adults

A study involving 1,500 college students suggests that those who experience early puberty are more likely to engage in abnormal eating behaviors and have feelings of anxiety in young adulthood. Interestingly, the researchers found the association not limited to girls. In fact, the study conducted by Julia Zehr, Ph.D., a post-doctoral fellow at Michigan State University, and colleagues, found that both female and male students who reported they'd entered puberty earlier than their friends and peers scored significantly higher for measures related to binge eating, dieting and concerns about food intake, weight or body shape, as well as anxiety.

The findings are consistent with the idea that such behaviors result from long-lasting changes in brain circuitry that occur during early puberty, when a still-developing brain must adapt to the presence of surging hormones. Eating and anxiety disorders often begin during adolescence and are associated with early puberty, so some have held the view that the psychosocial pressures of standing out from one's peers make young kids more vulnerable. Another possibility is that the hormones themselves are to blame. Dr. Zehr points out that if either theory were true, adolescents would eventually grow out of such behaviors, because, eventually, the awkwardness of early puberty goes away and the hormones settle to adult levels. Based on the study's finding that early puberty is associated with increased symptoms in both young men and women, Dr. Zehr believes the influences of puberty are more biological than solely psychosocial.

Marijuana may be more mind-altering than you think: Early exposure can hinder brain development, increase susceptibility to other addictions

Marijuana may indeed be the storied "gateway drug" to other more serious drug addictions, according to researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. Adolescence is a delicate and dynamic time in the development of the brain when important neural pathways essential for behavioral and cognitive functions are formed. It also is a time when teenagers and even pre-teens are likely to first experiment with marijuana.

Researchers have debated whether or not marijuana use during adolescence can affect brain development or cause the user to be more vulnerable to neuropsychiatric disorders and drug abuse later in life. Yasmin Hurd, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology and biochemistry and psychiatry at Mount Sinai, and colleagues, sought to determine exactly what, if any, impact tetrahydrocannabinal (THC), the psychoactive component of marijuana, has on the developing brain and later behaviors. According to their studies, rats exposed to THC during the early developmental stages, had, as adults, higher self-administered heroin intake under mild stressful conditions than rats not exposed to THC during developmental stages. Those exposed showed neural impairments in brain areas linked to reward, stress and anxiety. These impairments can cause dysregulation of the enkephalin system – the brain's natural morphine system – and are implicated in addiction and affective disorders. Dr. Hurd suggests that while these findings are preliminary, they provide evidence that marijuana can have negative and long-lasting effects on the brain.

Naïve no more: Gene puckers up to propel puberty

According to ongoing research, puberty, that awkward phase when boys and girls are primed for their sexual reproductive years as men and women, appears to be triggered by the sudden activation of a particular gene aptly called KiSS-1, which produces the protein molecule called kisspeptin that turns puberty on. In studies involving nonhuman primates, the only animals with a reproductive system in common with the human's, Tony Plant, Ph.D., professor of cell biology and physiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, aims to understand puberty's deep-seated neurobiological mechanisms. Such information could help prevent precocious or delayed puberty from occurring in some children.

With the initiation of puberty, the full repertoire of reproductive hormones that existed at birth but had gone into hiding at about six months of age, re-emerges in full force. The onset of puberty becomes official when gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) is secreted and sets off a chain reaction of chemical messages. Inside the hypothalamus, nerve cells release GnRH in a 'round-the-clock,' pulsatile fashion. With each secretion, the pituitary gland is stimulated to secrete its own messengers, lutenizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), directly into the circulation. In turn, these rising levels of LH and FSH cause the testes and ovaries to produce the sex hormones testosterone and estradiol, the culprits responsible for the physical changes and emotional baggage of male and female puberty, respectively. According to Dr. Plant, other molecules are beginning to be associated with the sudden resurgence of GnRH, so it's quite likely there are multiple pathways working together or in parallel.

Held in a different part of the world every four years under the auspices of the International Neuroendocrine Federation, this year's congress – Bridging Neuroscience and Endocrinology – is being sponsored by the American Neuroendocrine Society and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The first full day of the program, June 20, is being held in conjunction with the 10th Annual Meeting of the Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology.


<center>###</center>

<hr>

Formerly the International Society of Neuroendocrinology, the International Neuroendocrine Federation consists of six member societies and seven regional groups, representing all parts of the world. The federation's president is John A. Russell, MBChB, Ph.D., chair of neuroendocrinology, University of Edinburgh. The chair of the ICN 2006 scientific program is Iain J. Clarke, Ph.D., professorial fellow in the department of physiology at Monash University in Australia. Tony Plant, Ph.D., professor of cell biology and physiology and director of the Center for Research in Reproductive Physiology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, is chair of the local organizing committee.

NOTE TO EDITORS: The researchers will discuss their work during a briefing, "The Perils of Puberty," Wednesday, June 21 at 10 a.m., which will be moderated by Selma Witchel, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. All briefings take place in rooms 306-307 of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, downtown Pittsburgh. Reporters may participate via telephone conference call by dialing 800-860-2442 (from within the U.S.) or 866-519-5086 (from Canada). From other countries, call 001-412-858-4600. To be connected to the briefing you must reference ICN 2006. More information about the meeting and the schedule of briefings are available at http://newsbureau.upmc.com/ICN2006. The press room hours are 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday, June 20 through Thursday, June 22; Press room staff may be reached during this time at (412) 325-6080. Otherwise, please call the UPMC News Bureau at (412) 647-3555 or Lisa Rossi at (412) 916-3315 (cell).

Admittedly I haven't read the study. But if this press release has the facts right it seems all Mt. Sinai can conclude is that rats given pure THC as teens use more heroin when stressed than rats that weren't. I don't see any indication they gave the rats a choice after stressing them - either they took the heroin or they stayed stressed...

...nor any controls. Did -more- THC-conditioned rats use heroin than THC-unconditioned rats? Or did the THC-conditioned rats just use more heroin than an equal percentage of THC-unconditioned rats?

[Midnight toker]

Why teenagers should steer clear of cannabis

16:21 05 July 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Gaia Vince

Adolescents' use of marijuana may increase the risk of heroin addiction later in life, a new study suggests. Researchers say the work adds to "overwhelming" evidence that people under 21 should not use marijuana because of the risk of damaging the developing brain.

The idea that smoking cannabis increases the user's chance of going on to take harder drugs such as heroin is highly contentious. Some dub cannabis a “gateway” drug, arguing that peer pressure and exposure to drug dealers will tempt users to escalate their drug use. Others insist that smoking cannabis is unrelated to further drug use.

Now research in rats suggests that using marijuana reduces future sensitivity to opioids, which makes people more vulnerable to heroin addiction later in life. It does so by altering the brain chemistry of marijuana users, say the researchers.

“Adolescents in particular should never take cannabis – it’s far too risky because the brain areas essential for behaviour and cognitive functioning are still developing and are very sensitive to drug exposure,” says Jasmin Hurd, who led the study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.

But Hurd acknowledges that most people who use cannabis begin in their teens. A recent survey reported that as many as 20% of 16-year-olds in the US and Europe had illegally used cannabis in the previous month.

"Teenage" rats
In order to explore how the adolescent use of cannabis affects later drug use, Hurd and colleagues set up an experiment in rats aimed to mirror human use as closely as possible.

In the first part of the trial, six “teenage” rats were given a small dose of THC – the active chemical in cannabis – every three days between the ages of 28 and 49 days, which is the equivalent of human ages 12 to 18. The amount of THC given was roughly equivalent to a human smoking one joint every three days, Hurd explains. A control group of six rats did not receive THC.

One week after the first part was completed, catheters were inserted in all 12 of the adult rats and they were able to self-administer heroin by pushing a lever.

“At first, all the rats behaved the same and began to self-administer heroin frequently,” says Hurd. “But after a while, they stabilised their daily intake at a certain level. We saw that the ones that had been on THC as teenagers stabilised their intake at a much higher level than the others – they appeared to be less sensitive to the effects of heroin. And this continued throughout their lives.”

Hurd says reduced sensitivity to the heroin means the rats take larger doses, which has been shown to increase the risk of addiction.

Drug memory
The researchers then examined specific brain cells in the rats, including the opioid and cannabinoid receptors. They found that the rats that had been given THC during adolescence had a significantly altered opioid system in the area associated with reward and positive emotions. This is also the area linked to addiction.

“These are very specific changes and they are long-lasting, so the brain may ‘remember’ past cannabis experimentation and be vulnerable to harder drugs later in life,” Hurd says.

Neurologist Jim van Os, a cannabis expert at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands told New Scientist the research was a welcome addition to our understanding of how cannabis affects the adolescent brain.

“The issue of cross-sensitisation of cannabis/opioid receptors has been a controversial one, but these findings show the drug’s damaging effects on the reward structures of the brain,” van Oshe says. “There is now overwhelming evidence that nobody in the brain’s developmental stage – under the age of 21 – should use cannabis.”

The research appears in the online edition of Neuropsychopharmacology.

I'm not overwhelmed.

[palmspringsbum]

Bringing the Gateway Theory Back

STATS
July 6, 2006
Maia Szalavitz

News @ Nature hypes study on twelve rats

News @ Nature — the news affiliate of one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, which tags itself as providing “the best in science journalism” — is not usually a source of drug war propaganda. But this week, in covering a new study on the effects of marijuana on the brain, it sure sounded like one.

The story was purportedly about research on rats which found that those given marijuana during the period roughly equivalent to human adolescence tended to take larger doses of heroin when given access to that drug later in life.

It’s an interesting finding and could add to our knowledge of how exposure to one drug can affect responses to other drugs. But Nature covered the study of just 12 rats as though it gives important support to the long-discredited idea that marijuana acts as a “gateway” drug, causing users who start “just smoking pot” to rapidly turn into heroin injectors or cocaine smokers.

News @ Nature said:
<blockquote>
“ Neuroscientists have found that rats are more likely to get hooked on heroin if they have previously been given cannabis. The studies suggest a biological mechanism — at least in rats — for the much-publicized effect of cannabis as a 'gateway' to harder drugs.”
</blockquote>
But the article did not note that the problem with the “gateway theory” is that the vast majority of cannabis users never try harder drugs. While most illegal drug users start with the most widely available illegal drug — marijuana — most marijuana users start and stop with cannabis. Some 50 percent of high school students try marijuana before graduation, but just eight percent try cocaine, six percent try methamphetamine and less than one percent try heroin. This is why the Institute of Medicine, in a 1999 report on the use of marijuana as medicine, gave no credence to the gateway idea.

And while the article said that cannabis use might similarly predispose to amphetamine or cocaine use, it did not mention that the same authors had previously published a study finding no such effect with amphetamine.

Further, News @ Nature sure made both the researchers and the reporter covering the study sound far from disinterested and unbiased. The article quoted one of the study’s authors as saying that policies softening the law on cannabis were “ridiculous” in light of the existing evidence, and closed with the following:
<blockquote>
“The discovery also warns against complacency that cannabis does not have any lasting effect in young people who use the drug. ‘Lots of mothers say 'oh well, at least it's not cocaine’, [the researcher] says. But this is not about the short-term effects. For adults to do it is one thing, but we have to consider the effects on children."
</blockquote>
Let’s see: For the last 40 years or so we’ve run an uncontrolled experiment exposing at least half of America’s teenagers to cannabis. Obviously, it would be better if teenagers didn’t take the risk of exposing themselves to any psychoactive substances.

However, so far, no one has found any effects on mortality, there is no link with lung cancer, there are no deaths from overdosing, cognitive effects are minimal once the drug has worn off in all but the heaviest of users, and rates of use of cannabis and other drugs have waxed and waned over time. This scientist may believe her kids to be equally at risk when trying cannabis or cocaine — but she sure isn’t basing this belief on data. This is an interesting, but preliminary, study which should be covered; but it shouldn’t be covered without context.

[palmspringsbum]

Gateway to Nowhere?

The evidence that pot doesn't lead to heroin.

Slate
By Ryan Grim
Posted Thursday, July 20, 2006, at 11:57 AM ET


Earlier this month, professor Yasmin Hurd of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine released a study showing that rats exposed to the main ingredient in marijuana during their adolescence showed a greater sensitivity to heroin as adults. The wire lit up with articles announcing confirmation for the "gateway theory"—the claim that marijuana use leads to harder drugs.

It's a theory that has long seemed to make intuitive sense, but remained unproven. The federal government's last National Survey on Drug Use and Health, conducted in 2004, counted about 97 million Americans who have tried marijuana, compared to 3 million who have tried heroin (166,000 had used it in the previous month). That's not much of a rush through the gateway. And a number of studies have demonstrated that your chances of becoming an addict are higher if addiction runs in your family, or if heroin is readily available in your community, or if you're a risk-taker. These factors can account for the total number of heroin addicts, which could make the gateway theory superfluous.

On close inspection, Hurd's research, published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, doesn't show otherwise. For the most part, it's a blow to the gateway theory. To be sure, Hurd found that rats who got high on pot as adolescents used more heroin once they were addicted. But she found no evidence that they were more likely to become addicted than the rats in the control group who'd never been exposed to delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, marijuana's main ingredient.

Hurd began with two groups of rats. The first was administered THC every three days during their early adolescence (beginning at 28 days old) to approximate the sporadic marijuana use of American teens. The second group was given no drugs. Then, at mid-adolescence (56 days), both groups began a heroin regime. Hurd started by giving the rats a low dose of the harder drug. None of them got hooked. So, she doubled the fix. Each cage was equipped with an active and an inactive bar. Depressing the active bar when a white light was on gave the rats a hit of heroin; if they hit the bar regularly, that indicated addiction. Rats in both groups hit the active bar at least twice as often as they did the inactive one, which means they became addicted at roughly the same rate.

The difference between the groups came post-addiction: For the first 15 heroin sessions, both sets used generally equal amounts of heroin. Then the control rats leveled off. But the pot rats kept taking more of the drug, leveling off at about a 25 percent higher dosage. This increased use was evidence of their greater sensitivity to heroin.

Hurd says that because the marijuana-exposed rats demonstrated this heightened sensitivity, she expected them to be more motivated in pursuing the drug. But they weren't. The control rats paced their cages and repeatedly pressed the active bars even when the light indicating availability wasn't on. The pot rats, on the other hand, figured out that the heroin was available only at certain times, and that pacing and tapping the bar incessantly wasn't worth the trouble. When heroin was available, the marijuana rats took more of it. But when it wasn't, they chilled in the corner.

Extrapolate the study to human behavior, Hurd says, and it suggests that teenagers who smoke pot are no more likely than other kids to become addicted to heroin. (Her study doesn't speak to whether they'd be more likely to try the drug.) If teens do get hooked on the hard drug, though, they may develop a stronger addiction.

Hurd's results come on the heels of another marijuana finding that's not what the drug's opponents want to hear. Donald Tashkin, a UCLA medical with funding from the NIH's National Institute on Drug Abuse, looked at more than 1,200 people with cancers typically associated with cigarette smoking and a control group of more than 1,000 people without cancer. To his surprise, he found no link between marijuana and increased risk of cancer, even among the heaviest pot smokers. The results of Tashkin's study, the largest of its kind that's been done, will soon appear in the journal Cancer Epidemiology Biomarker and Prevention.

There are a couple of plausible explanations for Tashkin's finding. Research finds that smoking less than a pack of cigarettes a day leads to only a slightly higher cancer risk than not smoking at all. It's two packs a day that triggers a much higher risk. Two packs is the equivalent of 10 joints—more marijuana than almost anyone smokes. Tashkin speculates that the risk threshold for pot might be too high to measure in the United States. "One would have to repeat the study in a society such as Jamaica," he says.

Another possibility, according to Tashkin, is that marijuana's cancer-fighting elements and its carcinogens counteract each other. Animal studies have shown that THC has an inhibitory effect on a number of cancers. Marijuana also contains dozens of active cannabinoids, several of which have been shown to block cancer cell growth.

Tashkin's findings do not mean that marijuana is harmless. In previous work, he has shown that pot smoke leads to chronic and acute bronchitis at the same elevated rate as tobacco smoke. He is currently studying the drug's relationship to pneumonia. But his latest results about cancer risk, like Hurd's on the gateway theory, make pot seem more rather than less benign. The federal government has announced the results of Tashkin's past studies with press conferences and subway ads. Don't look for any this time around.

[palmspringsbum]

Let's Not Vaccinate Too Much

By Tom Teepen
theday.cm

Published on 10/9/2006 in Editorial » Perspective

Good news, people: the age-old problem of resisting temptation may be on the way out. Lives polished to a high gloss of glowing virtue lie just few medical trials away and then the serpent can start slithering all the way back to Eden, up that apple tree and right out of the picture.

Vaccines against cocaine addiction, smoking and obesity are in the works, according to the Chicago Tribune. A Swiss company has a major trial under way of a vaccine that builds antibodies that grab the hunger protein gremlin and keep it from egging on an unruly appetite.

And the United States government is backing research by the National Institute of Drug Abuse into vaccines that would take all the kick out of cocaine and tobacco. The government has so far spent $15 million on the project, so there must be something to it. You know how tight Washington is with a dollar.

If cocaine can be made to dangle no more allure than soap powder, it shouldn't be much of a trick to deflate marijuana and heroin highs, and soon researchers will be getting in front of whatever the new rave drug is, too, just as labs track the ever-morphing flu bug.

You can see what's coming. If vaccines can zero in on this and that untoward pleasure center and raid them like an al-Qaida back room, it won't be long before we will be getting vaccinated, for our own good, against lust right along with measles, polio and so on.

And about time. Evolutionist or creationist, you have to admit sex has been causing a lot of problems for as far back as our folk memory goes.

Not just Samson and Delilah, Frankie and Johnny, Bobby and Whitney dust-ups. Remember, whole nations have clashed because of it. Just ask Helen.

Roman Christianity split because the pope wouldn't let Henry VIII keep at it until he got it right.

Bill Clinton almost got thrown out of the White House because of it, in a case of premature evacuation.

After millennia upon millennia of couples dangerously getting the hots for one another, people finally will get married for the right reasons. They will get married for? Well, for some very good reason no doubt. Cheating-spouse jokes will no longer draw laughs, because no one will get them. Life will be one long, happy single entendre.

Of course, this could raise a little problem about the perpetuation of humankind, at least among those who think that keeping it going would be a good idea, on balance.

But that's easily fixed. Just make sex a legal obligation, like paying taxes. You'd mail in Form 1040-S every year attesting that you had fulfilled your federal quota.

There is no end of waywardness that could be put aright by virtue vaccines. CEOs will work up wish lists: for a vaccine against, say, employees' unholy desire for more pay. Legislators, always eager to legislate others' morality, will have the labs hopping 24-7. Preachers will no longer be plagued by suspicions that someone, somewhere is having a good time.

Welcome to drug free, lust free, munchies-free America — home of the br. . . — Uh, of the indifferent.

Tom Teepen is a syncicated columnist.

[palmspringsbum]

The Year in Health Fads: Why Graphics are Bad for You

Trevor Butterworth, December 28, 2006
STATS at George Washington University

Op-Art in The New York Times confuses rather than clarifies the year in health news

Yesterday’s New York Times featured an op-ed-op-art, which held out a grail-like promise to readers:
<blockquote><i>
“It is easy to get lost in medical news. Research often contradicts itself, and can leave us wondering what path to follow based on the latest findings. (Drink less, or have more red wine? Take a baby aspirin every day to prevent heart disease, or skip it for fear of stomach trouble?) The past year has provided its share of surprising and sometimes confusing health headlines. The following is a month-by-month guide to what we learned in 2006, and what we might (or might not) want to do about it.”
</i></blockquote>
Unfortunately, it would appear that, if not lost themselves, the contributors decision to illustrate our common quest for clarity has the effect of exposing the perils of using pretty graphics and limited text to summarize complex health stories.

The most egregious was December’s entry, “Don’t take antidepressants if you’re so depressed you’re suicidal.” It noted that “antidepressants may increase the risk of suicide in people up to age 25” and summed up: “So if you’re really depressed, you can no longer take your medicine… More things to be down about.”

While there are some individuals who may have an increase in suicide risk from taking certain medications, there is a growing literature that suggests when the prescription of the newer antidepressants goes up, suicide rates go down.

And the op-ed-op-art didn’t even mention that this increased risk isn’t related to all antidepressants but only to those in the class known as serotonin-re-uptake inhibitors (SRI’s). However, because these medications are very difficult to overdose on compared to earlier antidepressants, they may, in fact, be safer for most people.

While data from clinical trials does suggest increased risk of suicidal behavior with SRI’s, it is unclear who is most likely to be affected, how this risk relates to completed suicide, and what it actually means. Most suicides occur amongst people who are not taking antidepressants [reg. required].

Finally, the suicide risk from taking antidepressants is believed to be most acute during medication changes, so the idea that if you start becoming suicidal you should stop taking your medications is not only inaccurate but potentially dangerous.

<span class=postbold>July’s entry, “Smoke marijuana… ok, not quite,” reports on a rat study which found that while rats given marijuana were not more likely to try heroin if given the option, they were more likely to become addicted if they did try it.

No mention that this study is problematic, as rats, unlike humans, don’t like marijuana and have to be forced to take it. Stress, however, is linked with a greater risk of addiction to opioids – so this may merely represent a stress response and not a “gateway effect.”

When it comes to marijuana, it is far better to rely on data from humans, and embarrassingly for the Times, a more recent study in humans found that those who take marijuana earlier in their drug-using careers are no more likely to become addicts later than those who do not. This confirmed the Institute of Medicine’s earlier conclusion that the science does not support the idea that marijuana is a gateway to more harmful addictions.</span>

The March entry – “Sleeping pills can make you fat. So can sleep loss” – reported that the drug Ambien “caused some users to go on nocturnal food binges,” but that getting less sleep is linked with weight gain in women. It didn’t mention that the food binges associated with Ambien appear to be rare, while sleep loss in general is common. There were 26 million prescriptions written for Ambien in 2005, but only 1,000 reports of associated binge-eating. There are also many other sleep medications that are not associated with this problem.

A similar failure to examine relative risk can be found in the August entry on soy, which said that both the FDA and the American Heart Association have stopped recommending “a soy-rich diet as good for the heart.” But the article didn’t mention that if the alternative is a meat-heavy diet that includes a lot of animal-based fat, as is the case for many Americans, soy is still likely to be far healthier in terms of preventing cardiovascular disease (See STATS Maia Szalavitz’s “How Healthy is Soy” in the June 2006 issue of Psychology Today for more details).

It’s extraordinarily hard to sum up complex data in sound bites; but even though the Times could have expanded on these segments on the web, it just went for more graphics, linking each item to a PDF file.