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A review of news about addiction, alcoholism, drugs of abuse, and new scientific and medical treatment options.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'addiction'
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 a...
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 autumna...
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...
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 hist...
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 m...
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...
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 Addict...
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 me...
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 ...
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 Pro...
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 ...
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 dang...
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 Francisc...
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 o...
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 An...