When we speak of addiction as substance addiction.
Heroin addiction is a problem that causes great alarm.
It is considered drug addiction as a disease and not going away because:
is good business
Many people cannot live without drugs
The drug has been around since man exists.
Many addicts do not realize that addiction is harmful. (more…)
To prevent an increase in drug consumption and hence of these diseases, Dr. Jose Angel Arbesú, coordinator SEMERGEN Mental Health, said the primary care physician has an important role in the prevention, detection and treatment of addicts. (more…)
MADRID, Two out of three toxic heavy users also have mental illness: 83 percent antisocial behavior, 60 percent bipolar disorder and schizophrenia 47 percent, they said primary care physicians during the presentation of V Continuing Education Program ‘Mood disorders in primary care, organized by the Spanish Society of Primary Care Physicians (SEMERGEN) and Lundbeck. (more…)
Addiction is considered a disease, and you cure a disease. But the scientific substantiation of this idea is highly questionable. And the effectiveness of drug services is not established. The addiction can better dispense with the concept of disease and to promote policies that deal with the problem.
The British author and psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple in his book Drugs. The myths and lies (2006) that it is nonsense to think that addiction is a disease. Addiction is for him a matter of bad morals.
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…)
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…)
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…)
Some signs can occur with drug abuse are:
- Lower-emphasis on physical appearance and clothing, and inadequate hygiene;
- Loss of appetite and unexplained weight loss;
- Conjunctival hyperemia, and frequent inappropriate use of eye drops and air fresheners mouth (chewing gum);
- Absenteeism and poor school performance; (more…)
Family risk factors include:
- Family history of use of toxic substances. A study shows that a teenager whose parents use drugs, has a 3-fold higher risk of developing dependence at some point, with the rest adolescents.
- Disorganized family life is another important factor in predisposition to drug use of adolescents. Families in which there are various conflicts, physical or sexual abuse, intense psychological stress, have a high risk of consuming drugs. Clearing the emotional and familial warmth, are important in any family that is trying to avoid such abuses.
- Inadequate involvement of parents in education and adolescent life, also increase risk for abuse and drug addiction. Extremes of education, and severe punishments (often corporate) or increased affordability for parents, increase the risk for abuse.
General considerations
A drug is any chemical, natural or synthetic, that once ingested alters the behavior, perception, mood changes, increases or decreases the physical or mental performance. Its most important feature is that they create habits, there is an irrepressible desire to repeat their use because they give the man a sense of well being.
The drug addiction is a state of change, sometimes poisoning, caused by ingestion of one or more drugs.
Drug addiction is poisoning caused by different agents such as alcohol, snuff or alkaloids that disrupt life and may lead to its destruction. (more…)
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