Meth Addiction Cure: UCLA Tests Ibudilast On Human Addicts. LOS ANGELES -- The Food and Drug Administration has fast-tracked human tests of what may be the first cure for methamphetamine addiction. The drug also may be the first non-opiate drug treatment for heroin and opiate addiction. In a recent trial, UCLA researchers administered the drug Ibudilast, or MN-166, to 11 non-treatment-seeking meth addicts. The trial, the first of three phases of Ibudilast human testing required for FDA approval, was meant to test the safety of the drug taken in combination with meth. Researchers said the treatment appears to have passed the safety test and eased the addiction. "Very preliminary results would indicate that Ibudilast may dampen craving and improve cognitive functioning," said Dr.
Researchers have been trying to develop medication to treat meth addiction for more than 20 years. The only options right now for meth addicts seeking recovery are counseling, an in-patient rehab center or Narcotics or Crystal Meth Anonymous. Related on HuffPost: Enhancing the Brain's Flexibility Could Unseat Addiction. Reid had been drinking hard since 1994, when sickness, his father's death and business troubles had him reaching for more alcohol than usual. Eventually he was knocking back 10 or more drinks a day. In 2009 his family leveled an ultimatum. He had to give up alcohol or get out. “That choice sounds real simple, but it's very, very hard,” says the 58-year-old college-educated businessman, whose last name has been withheld. Select an option below: Customer Sign In *You must have purchased this issue or have a qualifying subscription to access this content.
Addicted to Denial: The Truth About Addicts and Addiction. It’s high time we confront our collective denial about addictions. It’s time to stop thinking that addicts are screwed up people and start focusing on our culture of addiction . It’s time that we stop fantasizing that addicts are shooting up in dark hallways and smoking pot in high school yards and realize that our friends and families have a vast array of substances they abuse ready and available in their bathroom medicine cabinet, some of which have been prescribed by their doctors. It’s time to take note of our own addictive tendencies in the way we “use” salt, sugar, coffee, wine, and other foods as well as tobacco, searching the Internet, watching television, and even exercising. It’s time to stop projecting the problem on some young, dark-skinned, back alley, television hoodlum and take a good look in the mirror.
But the problem doesn’t stop there. The myth defying truth is this: many addicts fail because treatment programs don’t work. So, why then do people abuse substances? 1. Recovering heroin addicts may lose their inner voice - health - 22 October 2012. We talk to ourselves all day, whether it's convincing ourselves to get out of bed, or avoid that second piece of cake. But this internal voice uses a lot of brainpower. People who have to concentrate on resisting an addiction appear to sacrifice this ability in order to conserve brainpower for other tasks. The average person can juggle about four mental tasks at any time, says Monica Faulkner of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. How much you can multitask is related to working memory. With the assumption that recovering addicts must think constantly about their addiction, Faulkner and her colleagues wondered whether this comes at the cost of using up one of those four "slots", possibly impairing their overall working memory.
Faulkner and Cherie Marvel, also of Johns Hopkins, recruited six people who had never used drugs and six recovering from a heroin addiction who were taking methadone to help. Hearing hallucinatory voices "The differences are subtle," says Marvel. More from the web. Teenage cannabis use leads to cognitive decline - health - 27 August 2012. The downside to cannabis use has been made clearer. The most detailed study yet of the drug's long-term effects shows that those who start a weed habit as teens enter middle age with an 8-point deficit in IQ compared to non-users. Evidence is growing that cannabis-based drugs can benefit health, but suspicions remain that persistent cannabis use from an early age can have a detrimental effect on cognition. Confirming those suspicions is tricky, though, since cognitive impairment observed later in life could have been present before the drug was first used. To get around the problem Madeline Meier at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and her colleagues have taken the long view.
They used a detailed health study which followed 1000 people in Dunedin, New Zealand, from birth until age 38. The bad news is that the damage does not appear to be reversed after dropping the habit. Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1206820109 (YouTube) Addicted Brains. Top 10 Great Things About Being Addicted. Here at All About Addiction we keep talking about fixing addiction and treating addiction given the suffering that addicts go through. But there are certainly some positive things that go along with being addicted and we figured we should point those out. SO here is the top 10 addiction list: 1.
—For many addicts, schedules are not an issue and consistent commitments no longer exist. This means that any given day can feel like a vacation. 2. 3. —Whether because addicts seem aloof or unhappy or because they can smell bad, people seem less likely to engage addicts in random conversations. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. We could probably think of more, but I think that this top 10 list gets at some of the most basic things that active addiction is great at providing.
. © 2012 Adi Jaffe , All Rights Reserved Look for Rehab with the A3 Rehab-Finder. Mexican scientists successfully test vaccine that could cut heroin addiction | World news. How Pot, Cocaine, and Hunger Intersect in the Brain | Pharmaceuticals. In June 2006 pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-Aventis began selling a new weight-loss drug called rimonabant in Europe. Rimonabant worked in part by reducing appetite, and the company claimed it could also treat addiction, harmful cholesterol, and diabetes.
Lab tests even suggested the drug produced healthier sperm. But within six months, the company had received more than 900 reports of nausea, depression, and other side effects. By the following summer, the U.S. Rimonabant was a spectacular flop, and yet its lure today is stronger than ever. Zheng-Xiong Xi, a pharmacologist at the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Baltimore, explains that the main receptor in the endocannabinoid system, CB1, interferes with brain levels of dopamine, a chemical associated with reward-seeking behavior, pleasure, and motivation.
A few years ago, Xi was studying this phenomenon in mice, hoping to find a pill to treat addiction to dopamine-boosting drugs such as cocaine.
Smoking.