Influence of gender and education on cocaine users in an outpatient cohort in Spain

Abstract

Gender significantly influences sociodemographic, medical, psychiatric and addiction variables in cocaine outpatients. Educational level may be a protective factor showing less severe addictive disorders, longer abstinence periods, and better cognitive performance. The aim was to estimate gender-based differences and the influence of educational level on the clinical variables associated with cocaine use disorder (CUD). A total of 300 cocaine-consuming patients undergoing treatments were recruited and assessed using the Psychiatric Research Interview for Substance and Mental Diseases according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision. Women developed CUD later but exhibited more consumption of anxiolytics, prevalence of anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and major depressive disorders. Alcohol and cannabis use disorders were more frequent in men. A predictive model was created and identified three psychiatric variables with good prognosis for distinguishing between women and men. Principal component analysis helped to describe the different profile types of men and women who had sought treatment. Low educational levels seemed to be a risk factor for the onset, development, and duration of CUD in both genders. Women and men exhibited different clinical characteristics that should be taken into account when designing therapeutic policies. The educational level plays a protective/risk role in the onset, development and progression of CUD, thus prolonging the years of compulsory education and implementing cognitive rehabilitation programmes could be useful.

Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor as a Potential Biomarker of Neuroinflammation and Frontal Cognitive Impairment in Patients with Alcohol Use Disorder

“…Moreover, a longitudinal study has suggested that an educational level lower than high school and a low job occupation is associated with an increased risk of dementia in alcohol patients [69]. Similarly, our group has recently found that a high educational level could play a protective role in the onset, development, and progression of cocaine use disorders and could also protect against cognitive impairment caused by alcohol consumption throughout life [70,71]. Interestingly, in this study we found a negative association between the state of frontal lobe functions with two signaling molecules, VEGFA and fractalkine, involved in vascular function and neural plasticity.…”

Sex Differences in Plasma Lysophosphatidic Acid Species in Patients with Alcohol and Cocaine Use Disorders

“…Large samples of women should be included to confirm the sexual dimorphism observed in this study; (2) Some sociodemographic differences were associated with the sources of recruitment for the control and SUD groups. We found significant differences in educational levels between both groups, which could be associated with the appearance and severity of SUD [43]; (3) The recruitment of the sample was conducted from outpatient treatment programs and there are some sociodemographic and clinical variables that remain unknown and could affect the validity of our results (e.g., diet and nutrition, income or economic status, non-psychotropic medication, physical activity); (4) The present data were obtained from patients with a history of SUD in abstinence, and additional experimental groups (e.g., active alcohol and cocaine users) should be included; (5) Longitudinal studies are also needed to monitor changes in LPA concentrations during abstinence at different times in the same abstinent SUD patients; (6) Although we have examined the most abundant LPA species in the human blood, we cannot ignore the presence of other acyl-LPA that were not measured, such as 22:6-LPA, whose relative activity could be relevant; and (7) As we did not measure the expression of precursors (e.g., lysophospholipids and glycerol 3-phosphate (G3P)) and metabolic enzymes involved in the metabolism of LPA (e.g., ATX and lipid phosphate phosphatases (LPP 1-3 )), future research is needed to explore these molecules and elucidate potential differences between healthy controls and patients with SUD.…”

Plasma Amino Acid Concentrations in Patients with Alcohol and/or Cocaine Use Disorders and Their Association with Psychiatric Comorbidity and Sex

“…In agreement with these previous observations, we found a lower rate of women in the outpatient treatment programs for alcohol and cocaine, but these sex differences were still more marked in the group of patients with both AUD and CUD (12.5%) compared with patients with AUD (40.0%) or CUD (26.8%). Concordantly, several studies have reported that women have lower rates of cocaine use and attend treatment programs to a lesser extent [12,55]. Despite the underrepresentation of female participants in the groups of patients with SUD, we used a sex-balanced control group to explore the sexual dimorphism of plasma amino acid concentrations.…”