Substance Use Disorders in Adults: A Narrative Review
Abstract
Research on substance use disorders published in 2024 has included smoking, cannabis, alcohol disorder, stimulant-related and opioidrelated disorders. Prevalence rates for substance use disorders in U.S. adults have varied from 9-18% over the last year depending on the type of substance use disorder. The negative effects have included limited exercise capacity, lung and respiratory muscle function, violence and suicidality. Predictors/risk factors have been disparate including male gender, childhood maltreatment, early onset use, narcissism, reward sensitivity, anger, cancer and being an elite athlete. Comorbidities include loneliness, pain and depression. The most common treatments have been cognitive behavior therapy and ketamine. Potential underlying biological mechanisms have included low heart rate variability, aberrant EEG patterns and gene variants related to the brain’s reward system. Methodological limitations of this literature include the greater frequency of reviews and meta-analyses than empirical studies, the inclusion of adults with different types of substance use disorders in both the empirical studies and the meta-analyses and the rare multi-variable studies to determine the relative importance of different risk factors as well as the efficacy of different therapies.
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