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A review of news about drug addiction, alcoholism, drugs of abuse, and new scientific and medical treatment options, by the author of "The Chemical Carousel."
Recent Posts Tagged With 'addiction'
Should I Tell My Boss?
Health help in the workplace.It’s no secret: Times are tough. The situation at work is uncertain at best, downright Machiavellian at worst. According to a recent survey by the American Psychological Association (APA), the primary source of stress f...
Defining Alcoholism
How much is too much?Alcohol consumption lies on a spectrum, from nondrinkers on one end to patients dying of alcohol-related liver disease on the other. Novelist Jim Harrison once claimed that his ambition was to be a “problem drinker,” rathe...
Shining New Light on Addiction
SAD phototherapy may help with alcoholismIt’s that time of year again.For many people, the advent of seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, is only, and literally, a matter of time. Since the autumnal equinox at 9.51 a.m. GMT on September 23, when d...
Bulimia as Food Addiction
Serotonin-mediated brain activity drives the binge-and-purge cycle Bulimia, the binge-and-purge disorder that tends to afflict young women, seems especially linked to serotonin abnormalities. Bulimics gorge themselves and then induce vomiting--a debi...
Serotonin and Dopamine: A Primer
The Molecules of Reward Serotonin and dopamine are part of a group of compounds called biogenic amines. In addition to serotonin and dopamine, the amines include noradrenaline, acetylcholine, and histamine. This class of chemical messengers is produc...
Alcohol and HDL levels
Should Middle-aged Men Stop Drinking ?Heavy drinking and age don't always mix very well, despite the alleged beneficial health effects of taking just a single drink per day. Now comes news that, for men in their 50s, even high levels of the protectiv...
Book Review (Part Three): Women Under the Influence
Rehab and the Working MotherAccording to Columbia University’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, more than 2.5 million women abuse or are dependent on illegal drugs. Women are almost 50 per cent more likely to be prescribed a narcot...
The Myth of Controlled Drinking
Forward into the Past: White-Knuckle AlcoholicsFor the past two decades, social psychologist Stanton Peele has questioned the necessity of abstinence for alcoholics, claiming, in The Meaning of Addiction and in Diseasing Of America: Addiction Treatm...
Book Review (Part Two): "Women Under the Influence"
The Rise of the Binge Grrls“Women get drunk faster, become addicted more quickly, and develop alcohol-related diseases—such as hypertension and liver, brain and heart damage—more rapidly than men.” --The National Center on Addiction and Subst...
Book Review (Part 1): "Women Under the Influence"
Women and Cigarettes: “The Virginia Slims Woman is Catching up to the Marlboro Man.”“Compared to boys and men, girls and women become addicted to alcohol, nicotine, and illegal and prescription drugs at lower levels of use and in shorter period...
Media Suffers Attack of Cannabis Psychosis
Bad Science Makes for Bad Science JournalismAccording to the London Daily Mail, smoking a single joint of marijuana increases your risk of developing schizophrenia by 41 per cent. The Mail quoted Professor Robin Murray of the Institute of Psychiatry...
A View From the Other Side: What Disease?
A psychiatrist takes issue with the semantics of addictive disease in SLATE.See "Medical Misnomer: Addiction isn't a brain disease, Congress."By Sally Satel and Scott Lilienfeld...
Food Addiction
Carbohydrates on the Brain, Food Rehab in the FutureEarlier this month, Yale University hosted the first-ever conference on Food and Addiction. Dr. Nora Volkow of the National Institute on Drug Abuse told the collection of experts on nutrition, obesi...
What's Wrong With This Picture?
A bit of cognitive dissonance, perhaps? The situation could easily be reversed, but cigarette manufacturers mostly advertise in magazines, not newspapers. Otherwise, we might be reading about the dangers of consuming too much alcohol in casinos, whil...
European Tree Yields New Alcoholism Treatment
Anti-Smoking Drug Also Curbs Alcohol CravingA drug approved last year for smoking cessation has also shown promise for use against alcoholism, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), announced yesterday. Varenicline, curren...
Fearing Medicine
By Dirk HansonHave Americans become afraid of their doctors?Once upon a time, Americans went to their doctors to get pills. Doctors complained that patients believed competent medical care consisted of being handed a prescription. In the absence of t...
Does AA Work?
Bill W., co-founder of AA(Adapted from "Addiction: The Search for a Cure.")Despite recent progress in the medical understanding of addictive disease, the amateur self-help group known as Alcoholics Anonymous, and its affiliate, Narcotics Anonymous, a...
