Parents and children alike have a difficult time deciding how much is too much when it comes to Internet use. With homework and social life sometimes having an online focus, families may even struggle to determine what kinds of Internet use fall into social and academic categories.
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Self-medication refers to the practice of using a substance to relieve problem feelings such as stress, anger or depression. People who practice self-medication most often reach for drugs or alcohol to wipe away the experience of unwanted emotions. Doing so, however, puts people at risk for outright abuse of those substances, according to findings in a 2011 study.
Dramatic sleep loss from cocaine use cost Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd, famed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, dozens of wins, says the retired player. Boyd’s recent testimony in a USA Today article points to the need for ongoing and extensive drug testing for professional athletes, as the former Red Sox pitcher says he never experienced a drug test during the span of his cocaine use, starting in the early 1980s.
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The use of alcohol by young adults is a measure that is carefully watched by experts in substance abuse treatment, as well as those who work to provide education and intervention programs for the public. Those in the early years of adulthood are transitioning from college and career development into their first full-time jobs and marriage and family.
Seventy-five years ago two men came together and agreed that they had no power over their addictions. The power to quit would have to come not from their will power but from somewhere else. It took 75 years for science to catch up to what the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous figured out intuitively — addicts have no choice but to continue to use and reuse whatever drug or substance they are addicted to because they cannot stop. Addiction is by definition a habit that is beyond rational choice.
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Two of the most challenging health problems in America today are drug abuse and obesity. The search for ways to unlock the secrets of both types of addiction may have just gotten a boost. Results of new research, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), show that some of the same brain mechanisms that fuel drug addiction in humans also accompany the emergence of compulsive eating behaviors and development of obesity in animals.
About the Study
The study, “Dopamine D2 receptors in addiction-like reward dysfunction and compulsive eating in obese rats,” conducted by researchers at the Scripps Research Institute, Jupiter, Florida, was released in the online version of Nature Neuroscience (http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.2519.html) March 28, 2010, and will appear in the May 2010 print issue. When researchers gave rats unlimited access to high-fat food in varying levels, they found that unrestricted availability alone can trigger addiction-like responses in the brain, leading to compulsive eating behaviors and the onset of obesity.
Both obesity and drug addiction, say researchers, have been linked to a dysfunction in the brain’s reward system.
Overconsumption in both cases can trigger a gradual increase in the reward threshold. This results in the requirement of more and more palatable high-fat food or reinforcing drug to satisfy the cravings over time.
Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of NIDA, commenting in a press release on the study (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-03/niod-cmo032610.php) said, “This research opens the door for us to apply some of the knowledge we have gathered about drug addiction to the study of overeating and obesity.”
The study results appear to support the idea that type 2 dopamine receptors (D2DR) – brain receptors that have been shown to play a key role in addiction – also play a key role in the rats’ heightened response to food. As the rats became obese, levels of D2DR in the brain’s reward circuit decreased. This drop in D2DR, say researchers, is similar to what happens in humans addicted to drugs like heroin or cocaine.
Paul J. Kenny, one of the study’s co-authors and an associate professor at Scripps Jupiter, Florida research facility, points out the potential implications. “It is possible that drugs developed to treat addiction may also benefit people who are habitual overeaters.”
Paul Johnson, co-author and graduate student in the department of molecular therapeutics, has this to say: “Hopefully, this will change the way people think about eating. It demonstrates how just the availability of food can trigger overconsumption and obesity.”
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An outspoken Criminal Court judge is being transferred from State Island to a position in Manhattan, and the transfer could be due to his apparent Facebook addiction.
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The current global recession has certainly had its impact on nearly everyone in a variety of ways. For those who struggle with addiction, the effects may be even more poignant. For those who provide healthcare and treatment for addiction, there is some division over exactly how the recession has impacted addictive behavior.
Read more about Experts Disagree over Recession Impact on Addictive Behaviors
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