UK Prevention Research Partnership (UKPRP) funding secured by UKCTAS academics

We are delighted to announce that UKCTAS has been successful in securing future funding through a multi-funder research initiative; the UK Prevention Research Partnership (UKPRP). UKTCAS academics joined forces with new collaborators and a range of public and private sector organisations to apply to the UKPRP.

The new consortium has now been awarded £5.9 million funding over five years and is called SPECTRUM (Shaping Public hEalth poliCies To Reduce ineqUalities and harM).

UKPRP research grants aim to develop, test and refine new, practical and cost-effective approaches to preventing non-communicable diseases at scale, which will in turn help to reduce health inequalities across the UK. The initiative is supported by twelve funders from UK Research and Innovation research councils, charities and government. In its first round of funding, four Consortia and four network grants have been awarded.

Prof. Linda Bauld, University of Edinburgh

“SPECTRUM intends to address some of the most controversial questions facing the health of our population. To reduce diseases like cancer, heart disease, diabetes and respiratory diseases we need to address their main preventable causes. To do so means introducing and enforcing public health policies that often clash with the business interests of very profitable companies.

SPECTRUM aims to produce research that can rise to this challenge. This research will be used by our partners outside of academia, who will be active members of SPECTRUM, to make the case for effective policy and practice to improve health and address inequalities in the UK and further afield.”

The SPECTRUM Consortium is led by Professor Linda Bauld (pictured above) from the University of Edinburgh and for the last 10 years has been the deputy director of UKCTAS. Co-investigators and collaborators from 10 Universities in the UK and one in Australia are included. In addition, the Consortium brings together leading alliances that aim to improve health and reduce inequalities in the UK and further afield, along with Public Health England, Health Scotland, Public Health Wales and two independent companies specialising in statistical modelling and retail data.

SPECTRUM will aim to conduct research to prevent and address harm to health from unhealthy commodities by using systems science to identify and evaluate solutions. The focus of the new Consortium will be the commercial determinants of health and health inequalities, continuing UKCTAS’s work at the population level on tobacco and alcohol, but also extending to unhealthy food and drink products where appropriate. The research will be organised around 8 inter-related Work Packages involving new research, along with knowledge exchange, impact and public engagement activities.

More information is available on UKCTAS.net/SPECTRUM

Alcohol Policy in Practice | Continuing Professional Development Course | 11th-13th September 2018

Following the successful Alcohol CPD courses held in 2014-2017; we are delighted to announce the line-up for our 2018 course, featuring some exciting new inputs!

This year’s course will feature inputs from Prof. Anna Gilmore and colleagues from the University of Bath, Dr Carol Emslie from Glasgow Caledonian University, Dr James Nicholls from Alcohol Research UK, and Professor Karine Gallopel-Morvan from the EHESP School of Public Health, France. We also welcome the return of highly-rated inputs from leading experts such as Katherine Brown from the Institute of Alcohol Studies and Colin Shevills of Balance North East.

What previous participants said:

“Great range of content and world-class speakers. Organisers did an amazing job including looking after us all while we were here. The mix of lectures / Q & As / panel discussions was great. Really worth taking time away from work/home to attend this.”
“Extremely informative course and relevant to current alcohol policy challenges. Good venue, convenient location and lovely setting. Module well organised and brilliant range of speakers.”
“Thank you very much. It was a great privilege to listen and attend this course. Lectures and lecturers were outstanding.”
“Very informative useful training, well worth my time and travel.”
“Wonderful networking opportunity.”
“Thank you for such a brilliant training event – the content was spot on, all the presentations and sessions were really, really good and I came away feeling that I had learned masses: a rich diet of fact and opinion. I can honestly say that I have rarely – if ever – enjoyed such an event quite as much as this one.”

Anyone wishing to gain an in-depth understanding and up to date insight into evidence and innovative practice in alcohol policy in the UK and internationally.

Previous participants have included people working in public health, local and national alcohol policy, or alcohol research; from Iceland to New Zealand.

Places are filling up fast and the early-bird rate applies until Friday 15th June 2018! 

Apply Here!

New animated video from the Bristol Tobacco & Alcohol Research Group on Smoking & Mental Health

Cigarette smoking increases coffee consumption: findings from a Mendelian randomisation analysis

Marcus Munafò and his colleagues at the University of Bristol, have looked into the smoking and drinking habits of about 250,000 people. They found that smoking makes you drink more caffeinated drinks, possibly by changing your metabolism so that you break down caffeine quicker, pushing you to drink more to get the same hit.

It’s impossible to do a randomised controlled trial (the most rigorous kind of scientific trial) when it comes to smoking, because it would be unethical to ask a randomly selected group of people to smoke. The next best thing is to study huge biobanks of health data. These biobanks contain information about people’s genes, diets and lifestyles.
To explore the relationship between smoking and caffeine, Munafo and his colleagues analysed data from biobanks in the UK, Norway and Denmark. They were particularly interested in people who had inherited a variant of a gene that has already been shown to increase cigarette smoking.

Chain drinking

The team found that people who had this gene variant also consumed more coffee – but only if they smoked. British people with the same variant also drank more tea, although their Danish and Norwegian counterparts didn’t. This is probably due to cultural differences, says Munafò. “People in Norway and Denmark don’t chain drink tea in the same way that people in the UK do,” he says.

The genetic variant seems to influence how much nicotine a person consumes. You can have zero, one or two copies – and each additional copy is linked to an increase in smoking of about one cigarette per day. Each copy also appears to increase coffee consumption by 0.15 cups per day.

“You could extrapolate from that and say that if you smoked 10 cigarettes per day more than the next person, you would be drinking the equivalent of about one and a half extra cups of coffee per day,” says Munafò. He is wary of doing so, though, because the amount of nicotine a person gets from a cigarette will depend on the type of cigarette and the way it is smoked.

The gene variant codes for a nicotine receptor, which is not known to directly interact with caffeine. This suggests that cigarette smoking increases caffeine consumption and not the other way around.

“The team have used a rather clever technique to establish causality, which normally you wouldn’t stand a cat in hell’s chance of doing with an epidemiological study,”

Robert West – University College London.

What’s the link?

There’s a chance that cigarette smoking and caffeine consumption are linked through habit – that smokers tend to pair the two. But Munafò thinks that the nicotine in cigarettes might also influence the way a person metabolises caffeine. “It’s possible that smokers metabolise caffeine more quickly,” he says. If that is the case, smokers might need to consume more caffeine to get the same effects that a non-smoker would experience.

It’s also possible that the apparent link between smoking and coffee drinking could be down to some unknown function of the genetic variant, says West. “It evolved for a purpose, and it wasn’t to smoke,” he says.

A relationship between smoking and coffee might make it harder for smokers to quit, says Munafò. If a smoker stops smoking, but continues to drink plenty of coffee, they might start to experience unpleasant side effects, such as jitteriness. This might be misinterpreted as a symptom of smoking withdrawal, says Munafò. His team plans to investigate this.

By Jessica Hamzelou

Journal reference: bioRxiv, DOI: 10.1101/107037

Report launch: New issues and age-old challenges: a review of young people’s relationship with tobacco | 27/02/17

Join Prof Amanda Amos and Prof Marcus Munafo to discuss the current landscape, challenges and opportunities including a focus on young people, tobacco and mental health.

Please book your free please here>

The face of youth smoking in the UK is evolving.  Young people are growing up in a society radically disrupted by new technologies and societal norms, which are reshaping their perceptions of personal health, image, and values.

New issues and age-old challenges: a review of young people’s relationship with tobacco, brings together the available evidence on youth smoking and articulates a clear demand for action across the system.

Martin Dockrell from Public Health England will chair the panel session.

Full agenda is available here>

Congratulations to Suzi Gage for winning the AAAS Early Career Public Engagement Award!

Suzanne Gage, a scientist whose podcast, “Say Why To Drugs,” has received over 264,000 listens, has been chosen by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to receive the 2016 Early Career Award for Public Engagement with Science.

Gage recently completed her post-doctoral research in the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit at the University of Bristol, and is now a scientist at the University of Liverpool. She also founded “Sifting the Evidence,” a blog on The Guardian’s website in which she examines epidemiology, mental health and substance abuse. She is being honored by AAAS for “her evidence-based approach to public engagement activities and targeting audiences who may not be actively seeking science information.”

Gage is a “highly talented, enthusiastic and energetic young researcher who promises to be a real star of the future,” wrote Marcus Munafò, a professor of biological psychology at the University of Bristol, where Gage was a post-doctoral research associate until December. Through her blog and podcast, Munafò wrote, “Suzi has worked tirelessly to provide information to the general public about the scientific evidence surrounding the effects of recreational drugs.”

Her podcast, which she was inspired to produce after appearing on rapper Scroobius Pip’s podcast, discusses a different recreational drug in each episode. Gage aims to counter misinformation and myths surrounding various substances. Munafò noted that Pip’s involvement in the podcast has helped Gage reach an audience of young adults who might not otherwise receive the information. Pip emphasized that the program is not meant to condone drug use.

“This is not a pro-drugs podcast, this is not anti-drugs podcast,” Pip explained, “this is pro-truth and anti-myth.”

The podcast has topped the Science and Medicine chart in the iTunes store and has received support on Twitter, including from Virgin Group founder Richard Branson. It also won the Skeptic Magazine 2016 Ockham Award for Best Podcast. Munafò wrote that the show has also been used by teachers to introduce their students to evidence-based thinking.

Gage has also traveled across the United Kingdom, speaking at “Skeptics in the Pub,” evening events hosted by local organizations to promote critical thinking. She has spoken at the Royal Institution of Great Britain and music festivals in the UK.

She engaged with younger audiences in 2011 by participating in “I’m a Scientist, Get Me Out of Here,” an online event where students meet and interact with scientists. The scientists compete with one other, answering questions about science and their research that are provided by students, who then vote for their favorite scientist. Gage won in the “Brain Zone” category and used the winnings to start her podcast.

Gage’s work in public engagement was recognized in 2012, when she won the UK Science Blog Prize, and in 2013, when she received the British Association for Psychopharmacology Public Communication Award. She has also written for The Economist, The Telegraph and The Lancet Psychiatry.

Gage’s recent scientific work in studying the relationship between health behaviors and mental health outcomes has included investigating causal associations from observational studies, with particular emphasis on substance use and mental health. She earned a Master of Science degree in cognitive neuropsychology from University College London in 2005 and a Ph.D. in translational epidemiology from the University of Bristol in 2014. Her research also earned her the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology Travel Award in 2012. More recently, she received the Society for Research in Nicotine and Tobacco’s 2015 Basic Science Network Travel Award.

The AAAS Early Career Award for Public Engagement with Science was established in 2010 to recognize “early-career scientists and engineers who demonstrate excellence in their contribution to public engagement with science activities.” The recipient receives a monetary prize of $5,000, a commemorative plaque, complimentary registration to the AAAS Annual Meeting and reimbursement for reasonable travel and hotel expenses to attend the AAAS Annual Meeting to receive the prize.

The award will be bestowed upon Gage during the 183rd AAAS Annual Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, Feb. 16-20, 2017. The AAAS Awards Ceremony and Reception will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 17, in the Republic Ballroom of the Sheraton Boston Hotel.

Suzanne Gage completed her post-doctoral research at the University of Bristol and is now a scientist at the University of Liverpool. She has written for The Guardian, The Economist, The Telegraph and The Lancet Psychiatry.

Electronic cigarettes could have a huge effect on public health | Marcus Munafo, University of Bristol

June 20, 2016 2.17pm BST – Marcus Munafo – The Conversation

Tobacco still kills 6m people around the world every year. Despite huge public health efforts to help people quit and prevent young people starting, smoking remains the single greatest cause of ill health and premature death. And even with restrictions on tobacco advertising and smoking in public places, many young people continue to take up smoking. The situation is even worse in poorer countries, where support to stop smoking is limited, and tobacco control policies weaker.

So in light of this, how should we view the increasing popularity of electronic cigarettes?

The gadgets deliver a nicotine hit by heating a nicotine-containing propylene glycol (e-liquid) to create an aerosol (usually called “vapour”), which is inhaled. Put simply, they deliver nicotine almost as effectively as a conventional cigarette, but without the vast majority of other chemicals present in tobacco smoke (either from the tobacco itself, or as a result of the burning process).

A whole culture is emerging around “vaping”. Many devices offer a range of power settings, and a vast array of e-liquids is on offer, with varying nicotine contents and flavours. Enthusiasts often apply modifications to their devices, and engage in “cloud chasing” – competing to produce the largest and most interesting clouds of vapour. And yes, young people are experimenting with e-cigarettes (in the same way that they have always experimented with pretty much everything), although at the moment there is no strong evidence this is leading to subsequent cigarette use, or even long-term e-cigarette use.

The rapid growth in use of e-cigarettes, especially among smokers trying to cut down or quit, has taken the public health community and the tobacco industry by surprise. Both are struggling to catch up. Health professionals are hurrying to carry out research to develop evidence-based guidelines and policies. Meanwhile, the tobacco industry is buying up e-cigarette companies and introducing its own products onto the market.

So how concerned should we be about this emerging and disruptive technology?

Should we encourage existing smokers to use e-cigarettes to help them stop smoking, even if this means they continue using nicotine long-term? In the United Kingdom there is some consensus that smokers should be encouraged to use e-cigarettes if they feel they might help, and the National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training is supportive of their use. Part of the reason many vapers feel so passionately about the subject (and react strongly when they feel that vaping is being unfairly attacked) is that for the first time, through the use of e-cigarettes, they have felt able to take control of their nicotine habit, stop smoking, and reassert some control over their health, without being medicalised in the process.

But a problem remains in the lack of information on the possible harm of e-cigarettes. This is unlikely to change any time soon, since the health effects of tobacco use can take several decades to emerge, and it’s probable the same will be true for e-cigarettes. Nothing is entirely risk-free, but the vastly reduced number of chemicals present in e-cigarette vapour compared to tobacco smoke means we can be confident that vaping will be much, much less harmful than smoking.

Heartening evidence

As part of the investigation into the effects of e-cigarettes, we investigated how the cells found in the arteries of the heart, known as human coronary artery endothelial cells, responded when they were exposed to both e-cigarette vapour and conventional cigarette smoke. We found the cells showed a clear stress response from the cigarette smoke, but not from the electronic cigarette. This suggests tobacco smokers may be able to reduce immediate tobacco-related harm by switching from conventional cigarettes to e-cigarettes.

Many people find it difficult to function without their first caffeine hit of the day. But no one is seriously calling for coffee shops to be dismantled or regulated. Nicotine is addictive, but much less so on its own than in tobacco, where other chemicals enhance its effect. At the doses consumed by vapers the harm is likely to be very low (although we need to continue to research this), and many vapers actually gradually move to zero nicotine content e-liquids, even while continuing to vape.

Of course, we may end up with a large population of long-term nicotine users who use e-cigarettes to deliver nicotine rather than cigarettes, but all of the evidence at the moment suggests that this population will almost entirely comprise ex-smokers. This would produce a vast public health gain.

We must be careful not to restrict smokers’ access to e-cigarettes, or over-state the potential harm of their use, if this will put people off making the transition from smoking to vaping. To do so would deny us one of the greatest public health improving opportunities of the last 50 years.

Original post – The Conversation | More on E-cigarettes from UKCTAS

Human heart cells respond less to e-cig vapour than tobacco smoke – University of Bristol

New research has showed substantial differences in the way human heart cells respond to e-cigarette vapour and conventional cigarette smoke.

Researchers from the Medical Research Council Integrative Epidemiology Unit (MRC IEU) at the University of Bristol investigated how the same type of cells as those found in the arteries of the heart, known as human coronary artery endothelial cells (HCAEC), responded when they were exposed to both e-cigarette aerosol and conventional cigarette smoke.

Their results were published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

Professor Marcus Munafò, who was part of the study team, said: “The past few years have seen a rapid growth in the use of e-cigarettes, which deliver nicotine via inhaled aerosol. It’s thought that e-cigarettes are unlikely to be as harmful as conventional cigarettes, but little data exists to show their relative harms, or the long term effects of e-cigarette use. Therefore, research into these biological effects is critical. Our study looked at the stress response in heart cells in response to cigarette smoke and e-cigarette aerosol.”

The researchers created cigarette smoke extract from a conventional cigarette and electronic cigarette aerosol extract from an e-cigarette aerosol. Both were passed through a culture of the cells. The researchers then analysed the gene expression patterns of the heart cells to see if the cells exhibited a stress response to either the cigarette smoke or e-cigarette aerosol exposure.

Professor Munafò said: “We found the cells showed a stress response from the cigarette smoke extract, but not from the electronic cigarette aerosol extract. This result suggests tobacco smokers may be able to reduce immediate tobacco-related harm by switching from conventional cigarettes to e-cigarettes.”

‘Cigarette smoke but not electronic cigarette aerosol activates a stress response in human coronary artery endothelial cells in culture’ by Teasdale, Newby, Timpson, Munafo and White in Drug and Alcohol Dependence

Taken from: Bristol University News

#Bacon and #Tobacco | Suzi Gage | The @guardian @soozaphone

Suzi Gage is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Bristol, investigating associations between substance use and mental health.

“Vegetarians are probably breathing a sigh of relief today as headlines are warning us that processed and cured meats cause cancer. But the way this message has been framed in the media is extremely misleading.

Comparing meat to tobacco, as most news organisations who’ve chosen to report this have done, makes it seem like a bacon sandwich might be just as harmful as a cigarette. This is absolutely not the case”

Read the full article: Meat and tobacco: the difference between risk and strength of evidence | Science | The Guardian.