What If My Child Isn’t Motivated to Get Treatment for Addiction?
Suggesting Treatment to a Loved One
Intervention – a Starting Point
Drug Use, Stigma, and the Proactive Contagions to Reduce Both
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(#RecoveryIsPossible from #liquidhandcuffs if effective chemical free rehabilitation is applied) The ‘damage management’ and short-sighted approach of Opiate Substitute Treatments, cares little for the rehabilitation of the addicted individual, if there is no ‘sunset clause’ on the process. Medically Assisted Treatments, may be useful only as an initial circuit-breaker to dependency, but is not a long-term health benefiting option. (Some people are now going to Narcotics Anonymous to get off Methadone, after being heroin free for 14 years)
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(Vaping linked to dysregulation of mitochondrial genes and immune response genes)
Nov 24 2021
Since they hit the market, e-cigarettes have been touted as a safe alternative to tobacco cigarettes for adult smokers. When research began to suggest otherwise, many questioned whether smoking was still to blame for adverse effects, since most vapers are either "dual users" who also smoke cigarettes or have a prior history of smoking.
Now, a team of researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of USC has demonstrated that - independent of the effects of prior smoking – using e-cigarettes is linked to adverse biological changes that can cause disease. The study, published in Scientific Reports, revealed that vapers experience a similar pattern of changes to gene regulation as smokers do, although the changes are more extensive in people who smoke.
Our study, for the first time, investigates the biological effects of vaping in adult e-cigarette users, while simultaneously accounting for their past smoking exposure. Our data indicate that vaping, much like smoking, is associated with dysregulation of mitochondrial genes and disruption of molecular pathways involved in immunity and the inflammatory response, which govern health versus disease state."
Ahmad Besaratinia, PhD, corresponding author and professor of research population and public health sciences at the Keck School of Medicine
"We found that more than 80% of gene dysregulation in vapers correlated with the intensity and duration of current vaping," said Besaratinia. "Whereas none of the detected gene dysregulation in vapers correlated to their prior smoking intensity or duration."
Effects of vaping mirror those of smoking
In previous research, Besaratinia and his team have shown that e-cigarette users develop some of the same cancer-related molecular changes in oral tissue as cigarette smokers. They also discovered vapers had the same kind of cancer-linked chemical changes to their genome as smokers.
In this study, they found that, in both vapers and smokers, mitochondrial genes are preferential targets of gene dysregulation. They also found that vapers and smokers had significant dysregulation of immune response genes.
Besaratinia says the findings are not only novel and significant, but they are also interrelated, since growing evidence shows that mitochondria play a critical role in immunity and inflammation.
"When mitochondria become dysfunctional, they release key molecules," said Besaratinia. "The released molecules can function as signals for the immune system, triggering an immune response that leads to inflammation, which is not only important for maintaining health but also plays a critical role in the development of various diseases, such as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, metabolic diseases, and cancer."
"Given the popularity of e-cigarettes among young never-smokers, our findings will be of importance to the regulatory agencies," said Besaratinia. "To protect public health, these agencies are in urgent need of scientific evidence to inform the regulation of the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of e-cigarettes."
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(Dalgarno Institute Comment – Medically Assisted Treatment or Opioid Substitute Treatments are not a long-term solution, and the sector knows it. In fact, these treatments are causing increasing harms in and of themselves, both unto addiction, as well as physiological and biological harms. If drug use exiting outcomes is not the goal and all vehicles employed to help the dependent individual exit drug use – including the imperative of ‘sunset clauses’ on the use of MAT’s, then ‘harm reduction’ becomes a ‘harm enhancer’. (See Combining Medications With 12-Step Model Treatment Improves OUD Outcomes) These failed policy practices continue to be largely left unscrutinised (at least in the Australian context), as a more ‘set and forget damage management’ model, and this is both unacceptable as a public health outcome and an individual recovery outcome)
Dopamine along with other chemical messengers like serotonin, cannabinoids, endorphins and glutamine, play significant roles in brain reward processing. There is a devastating opiate/opioid epidemic in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at least 127 people, young and old, are dying every day due to narcotic overdose and alarmingly heroin overdose is on the rise. The Food and Drug Administration(FDA) has approved some Medication-Assisted Treatments (MATs) for alcoholism, opiate and nicotine dependence, but nothing for psychostimulant and cannabis abuse. While these pharmaceuticals are essential for the short-term induction of “psychological extinction,” in the long-term caution is necessary because their use favors blocking dopaminergic function indispensable for achieving normal satisfaction in life. The two institutions devoted to alcoholism and drug dependence (NIAAA & NIDA) realize that MATs are not optimal and continue to seek better treatment options. We review, herein, the history of the development of a glutaminergic-dopaminergic optimization complex calledKB220 to provide for the possible eventual balancing of the brain reward system and the induction of “dopamine homeostasis.” This complex may provide substantial clinical benefit to the victims of Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS) and assist in recovery from iatrogenically induced addiction to unwanted opiates/opioids and other addictive behaviors.