Author Archive

The Abuse of Drugs and Addiction

Saturday, January 30th, 2010

Drugs

Drug Abuse: the habitual use of drugs to alter mood, emotion, or state of consciousness, excessive use of drugs

Addiction: Compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit forming substance

The drug abuse and addiction is a serious problem facing many people today. Although no one knows why some people turn to drugs, there are other reasons why some do. Some people turn to drugs because of pain inside. Could it be that has lost a loved one and can not or can not cope with her personal problems, or sometimes, people can suffer from depression. Who really knows why? Only the person. It’s a sad thing to see because there’s nothing you can do to help a person with an addiction until they are willing to help themselves. Sometimes they’ve gone so far that are in denial. They really believe they are not addicted and that there is nothing wrong with them until they see it, is nothing you can say or do.

Addiction is a hard thing to tackle for the individual and his family. It is difficult to see a loved one with an addiction. It takes a toll on all parties involved. To go through so many stages. The worst part is when they hit you might think the rock background, but nothing can convince them that they are bad. Once arrived at the realization of their own then this is another stage to go. Now is the time to be rehabilitated. Rehabilitation is a slow and patient process, both for the family and the individual. The family has to keep faith that this will improve and the person must believe they can do this.

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The cocaine is carried in the genes

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

genes

Like the strip to the mountain goat, some people have a small mutation in their DNA that predisposes them to cocaine addiction once they try it. Although this is a very preliminary finding, a team of researchers has found a gene that could explain why one in 10 people taking cocaine become dependent on this drug.

“The important thing is that we have found a first gene linked to vulnerability to cocaine addiction,” he explained IMABIS Foundation in Malaga, one of the Spanish scientists who collaborated in this study.

Although the brain is still today a great mystery, the continuing investigation of the body sheds little flashes of light on its operation. One thing we know is that drugs can give pleasure and addiction to act on the reward circuits. Cocaine, in particular, work by increasing the concentration of dopamine (the pleasure neurotransmitter) in the neurons of this system, thereby strengthening its consumption. (more…)

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The skin also suffers the effects of cocaine

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

the effects of cocaine

Skin ulcers, itching, blisters, hives, rashes, warts on the nasal mucosa. These skin changes may be triggered because of the consumption of cocaine addiction. If a patient has chronic skin lesions and shows a strange and delusional behavior, should be an overall drug tests to confirm whether the use of this drug is the cause, as recommended by an article published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

“However, they must also be completely excluded other triggers of these skin reactions, even when they are illegal substances during testing, since a positive drug test does not always indicate the source of injuries,” warn the authors of the paper, conducted in the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota (USA). (more…)

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Compulsive shoppers, an addiction differently

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

addiction

Within the world of addiction, there are many that are not very common, but are of this character, and compulsive buying is by definition the uncontrollable desire to acquire any property, regardless of income or need, generating a cost that may exceed individual budget, making it almost unconsciously and with the subsequent repentance.

The reasons people take such action unconsciously, may have different causes, being the most definite psychological, such as personal dissatisfaction and frustration, looking through an outlet shopping with these psychological barriers.

Another factor leading to the purchase of influence is the effect of subliminal advertising, which hardly can be considered a science today, to bring life to instill a model to follow or brave new world, to which we all have access, only if buy a certain product, to being outside this world, but we do. (more…)

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Marijuana without THC?

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

Marijuana

Tetrahydrocannabinol, better known as THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana. A group of American scientists have identified genes that produce it. According to researchers at the University of Minnesota (responsible for the finding), will now be able to produce a cannabis plant free from its narcotic effects.

THC genes are active in a small “hairs” that cover the flowers of the plant. Currently trying to “disable”. Doing so could result in a plant without THC. Because these hairs can be seen with a magnifying glass, plants with and without this substance could be distinguished visually.

THC has many applications for pharma. This discovery could help to develop better drugs to relieve pain, nausea and other disorders. Furthermore, THC is used to treat glaucoma and asthma. Also for insomnia. (more…)

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A genetic variant associated with cocaine-induced paranoia

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

induced paranoia

One study suggests that the finding may shed light on the physiology of paranoia in general.

U.S. researchers. UU. have identified genetic variants that increase the risk of paranoia in cocaine addicts.

In their study of almost 4,000 people of African and European ancestry, the team of Yale University and the Faculty of Medicine at Boston University examined an area of the genome had previously been shown that it was linked to cocaine dependence and the paranoia induced by this drug.

The researchers conducted a genetic analysis of eleven variants of the gene-endomanosidasa (NSAIDs), which metabolize complex carbohydrates. They found that nine of the variants were related to cocaine-induced paranoia among African Americans and six variants were identified among those of European origin.

Variants were also associated in this area of the genome with cocaine dependence. (more…)

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The air of Madrid and Barcelona contains molecules of cocaine

Monday, January 18th, 2010

molecules of cocaine

The concentrations are so small that “even breathing would be 1000 years to consume the equivalent dose.

The air of Madrid and Barcelona contains molecules of cocaine, according to a research team comprised of researchers or Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), the Center for Energy, Environment and Technology (CIEMAT) and the Catalan Institute for Research Water (ICRA) have developed a method to detect drug for particles in the air in the two cities.

Researchers have analyzed the airborne particles in suspension and have certified the presence of up to five classes of drugs in the two study areas of the cities. Although not clear in which of the two cities has been found more drugs, have indicated that the data “are not representative of the air in two cities, and these were reflected in very specific areas where expected greater consumption.

Thus, the researchers found up to 17 components belonging to five different drugs in both cities, but noted that most of the particles that were found are attributable to cocaine. Components were also found amphetamines, opiates, cannabinoids and lysergic acid. (more…)

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Cocaine change the way genes function in the brain

Friday, January 15th, 2010

function in the brain

Prolonged exposure to cocaine can cause permanent changes in how genes are turned on and off in the brain, a finding that may lead more effective treatments for many types of addictions, researchers estadoundienses.

A study in mice conducted by the team of Ian Maze, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, found that chronic cocaine addiction prevented a specific enzyme performs his work of suppression of some genes in the brain circuits for pleasure.

This effect made even more longed rodents drugs.

The research helps explain how cocaine use changes the brain, said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health, which funded the study published in the journal Science.

“This discovery is enabling a new understanding of how the repeated use of drugs in the long term modifies the function of neurons,” Volkow said in a telephone interview. (more…)

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Results with a vaccine for cocaine addiction

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

vaccine for cocaine addiction

Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, USA, have developed a vaccine that helps block the sensation generated by cocaine use by 38 per cent of people who took it, as published in its latest issue the magazine ‘ Archives of General Psychiatry, thereby opening a new hope in the treatment of addiction to this drug.

As explained by the author of this research, Dr. Thomas Kosten, the aim is to curb the rewarding effects of cocaine and reduce relapses in their consumption, and so far it seems that “the concept works,” he said.

Cocaine molecules are too small to attract the attention of the immune system so that, for the body recognizes them, the researchers designed a vaccine that uses a harmless version of cholera toxin were added to small samples of cocaine molecular . (more…)

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The Treatment of Addiction to Heroin

Monday, January 11th, 2010

The Treatment of Addiction to Heroin

It is difficult to escape the clutches of drugs, but not impossible. Thanks to improved treatments, the numbers of former drug users have increased. Two thirds of those addicted to heroin and crack (smoked form of cocaine) who undergo therapy or consumption drop significantly reduced, according to a study on the effectiveness of cessation programs in England.

The work, published in The Lancet, shows the evolution of more than 14,000 patients treated for at least six months. The numbers of abstinence during the 28 days before the last clinical review were high: 42% of heroin addicts and 57% of crack users.

A not insignificant percentage of those who failed to leave the substances were able, at least, reduce their consumption: 29% of those who were ‘hooked’ on heroin and 8% of those who smoked cocaine. (more…)

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