It’s a new week and you know what that means, another set of relevant addiction research and addiction news! If you care about addiction and addiction recovery, it is important to stay current on the relevant news and A3 is here to help you do just that! Read on and check out the links to see what has been happening over the last week.
The Long-term Impact of ADHD-treating drugs– ADHD is a behavioral disorder, characterized by inattentiveness and hyper-activity, which affects five to seven percent of children nationwide. Much is known about how to treat it and how the psychostimulant drugs used work, but until now relatively little was known about their long-term effects on the brain. A new animal research from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, suggests that there may be no serious negative long-term effects on brain development of those individuals taking Ritalin (methylphenidate), one of the psychostimulant drugs used to treat ADHD. These results, which show that it is unlikely these drugs have any impact on drug use or addiction later on in life, are promising since a “sister” study conducted simultaneously at John Hopkins revealed similar results with slightly older primates.
Fighting addiction with a simple diet change– To start the battle against one’s addiction, look no further than the food on your plate! From his research, Drew Ramsey, M.D. reveals that patients are much more likely to relapse and not get clean when they have a poor nutritional diet. He explains how the processed “junk” food people so often consume has been striped of their nutritional values and instead target the same reward systems in the brain activated by addictive drugs. In the end, the simplest changes may be the necessary ones to breaking one’s addiction.
I-STOP: Stopping prescription drug abuse– New legislation passed in the state of New York has created a new system designed to stop the over-prescribing of medications that are being abused at a rate high enough to kill one American every nineteen minutes. I-STOP, the Internet System for Tracking Over-Prescribing, is a real-time database that shows pharmacists patients prescription history in order to prevent “doctor shopping” for extra narcotics. Lawmakers are optimistic that this system will help save lives and can become a national model.
The Largest Health Problem often overlooked– Addiction is the largest disease that often goes untreated. Approximately 16% of Americans over the age of twelve fight addiction; that’s 40 million Americans! More than twice as many Americans struggle with addiction than those who have cancer, and almost twice as many than those who have a heart disease or diabetes. And those figures leave out the 80 million Americans who smoke, drink and use drugs in “risky ways that threaten health and safety”! It is a large-scale problem affecting almost everyone either directly or indirectly. This article summarizes a 586-page report by the University of Columbia’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) addressing addiction, one of America’s most ignored health problems, with possible solutions.
The Effects of Decriminalization a Decade Later– Eleven years ago Portugal, despite much resistance, decriminalized all personal drug use. This does not mean that they made it legal, but rather those found in possession of drugs would not simply be thrown in jail. Instead they would face a board of experts comprised of a doctor, a lawyer, and a social worker who would determine if the defendant is a casual user or an addict in need of treatment. This approach has seemed to have a positive effect on the drug abuse problem in Portugal. According to a European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction report, the statistics show that the drug use rates in Portugal are well below the European average and half that of neighboring Spain. Over the eleven years since decriminalization, Portugal has gone from having 100,000 criminal drug users to just 40,000 now receiving treatment for their formerly criminal drug addiction. Joao Goulao, President of the Institute of Drugs and Drugs Addiction recently announced, “There is no doubt that the phenomenon of addiction is in decline in Portugal,” based on his review of the statistics.
NAC: A new, natural treatment for addiction– When it comes to treating addiction, there are many different methods, all of which work better for some than others. Recently, scientists in the United States and Australia have been working to utilize natural ingredients to treat addiction. They came up with the antioxidant N-acetyl-cysteine, abbreviated NAC. NAC affects the production of glutamate, which plays a critical role in the brain’s reward system that feeds addiction. Clinical, placebo-controlled trials of many different types of addicts, both substance abusers and behavioral addicts, have showed significant reduction or complete stoppage of drug use while taking NAC. Addictions including tobacco, marijuana, cocaine, gambling, and hair-pulling were all included in the study and had positive results.
See us again next week for more of the latest information about addiction, addiction research, and addiction treatment!