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Articles and health studies about addiction and alcoholism, including the most recent scientific and medical findings.
Dirk Hanson
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- November 22, 2010
- 03:32 PM
- 743 views
Drug-Drug Interactions to Watch Out For
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
P450 enzymes and “poor metabolizers.”
The finding, published in Science, is a bit arcane to the layperson. The big secret of how the P450 enzyme family metabolizes drugs turns out to be a critical phase change, where an oxygen molecule temporarily joins the mix, forming “Compound I,” a process the scientists documented by cooling the enzymes at just the right rate.
So what? Well, for starters, “cytochrome P450 enzymes are responsible for the phase I metabolism of approximatel........ Read more »
Rittle, J., & Green, M. (2010) Cytochrome P450 Compound I: Capture, Characterization, and C-H Bond Activation Kinetics. Science, 330(6006), 933-937. DOI: 10.1126/science.1193478
- October 26, 2010
- 01:34 PM
- 803 views
Anandamide Hits the “Hedonic Hot Spot.”
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
Marijuana and the munchies.
It’s no secret that marijuana very reliably increases appetite. Recently, research published in Nature has teased out an apparent mechanism by which internal cannabinoids are involved with gut microbiota. This affects inflammation, the metabolism of adipose tissue, and other factors implicated in obesity.
In addition, research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and blogged about by Neuroskeptic, showed that CB1 cannabinoid receptors ........ Read more »
Mahler, S., Smith, K., & Berridge, K. (2007) Endocannabinoid Hedonic Hotspot for Sensory Pleasure: Anandamide in Nucleus Accumbens Shell Enhances ‘Liking’ of a Sweet Reward. Neuropsychopharmacology, 32(11), 2267-2278. DOI: 10.1038/sj.npp.1301376
- October 21, 2010
- 02:40 PM
- 875 views
Does Ketamine Cause Bladder Damage?
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
Special K and Cystitis.
Normally, Addiction Inbox steers clear of alarmist stories about drug use. A lifetime of wildly overstated verbiage about “false drugs,” as the Firesign Theatre comedy group once delightfully phrased it, has left me wary of drug scare stories. Even obvious cases, like Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and crack babies, are more nuanced problems than most coverage has alleged.
For years now, rumors about bladder problems in recreational users of ketamine have periodi........ Read more »
Chu, P., Ma, W., Wong, S., Chu, R., Cheng, C., Wong, S., Tse, J., Lau, F., Yiu, M., & Man, C. (2008) The destruction of the lower urinary tract by ketamine abuse: a new syndrome?. BJU International, 102(11), 1616-1622. DOI: 10.1111/j.1464-410X.2008.07920.x
Mason K, Cottrell AM, Corrigan AG, Gillatt DA, & Mitchelmore AE. (2010) Ketamine-associated lower urinary tract destruction: a new radiological challenge. Clinical radiology, 65(10), 795-800. PMID: 20797465
- October 3, 2010
- 03:34 PM
- 841 views
Marijuana and Memory
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
Do certain strains make you more forgetful?
Cannabis snobs have been known to argue endlessly about the quality of the highs produced by their favorite varietals: Northern Lights, Hawaiian Haze, White Widow, etc. Among dedicated potheads, debates about the effects of specific cannabis strains are often overheated, and, ultimately, kind of boring. It's a bit like listening to a discussion of whether the wine in question evinces a woody aftertaste or is, instead, redolent of elderberries. For mos........ Read more »
Morgan, C., Schafer, G., Freeman, T., & Curran, H. (2010) Impact of cannabidiol on the acute memory and psychotomimetic effects of smoked cannabis: naturalistic study. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 197(4), 285-290. DOI: 10.1192/bjp.bp.110.077503
- September 15, 2010
- 09:09 PM
- 732 views
Sex, Drugs, and…. Sex
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
Pharmaceuticals and sexual performance.
The search for aphrodisiacs is an ancient, if not always venerable, human pursuit. Named for Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, aphrodisiacs are compounds that have the reputation, real or imagined, of increasing sexual desire, pleasure, and potency. It’s safe to say that rhinoceros horn or tiger penis—various forms of sympathetic magic—just don’t reliably do the trick.
Writing in Hormones and Behavior, a group of Canadian behavioral neurobiol........ Read more »
Pfaus, J., Wilkins, M., DiPietro, N., Benibgui, M., Toledano, R., Rowe, A., & Couch, M. (2010) Inhibitory and disinhibitory effects of psychomotor stimulants and depressants on the sexual behavior of male and female rats. Hormones and Behavior, 58(1), 163-176. DOI: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2009.10.004
- August 19, 2010
- 07:19 PM
- 749 views
FDA Reports Critical Drug Shortages
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
Delays put EMTs on alert for dextrose, naloxone, epinephrine.
It’s the kind of thing most people take for granted: You’re suddenly taken seriously ill—a heart attack, dehydration, asthma, shock, perhaps even a heroin overdose—and in the ambulance or the emergency room, medical professionals immediately go to work, using the right drugs and medications for the job.
Imagine lying in the back of an ambulance, in cardiac arrest, or experiencing an episode of acute schizophrenia, or turning........ Read more »
Jensen, V., & Rappaport, B. (2010) The Reality of Drug Shortages -- The Case of the Injectable Agent Propofol. New England Journal of Medicine. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1005849
- August 16, 2010
- 10:01 PM
- 840 views
Chasing the Genes for Cocaine Addiction
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
Brain protein MeCP2 in the spotlight.
Dr. Edward Sellers, former director of the psychopharmacological research program at the University of Toronto’s Addiction Research Foundation once said to me: “Every cell, every hormone, every membrane in the body has got genetic underpinnings, and while many of the genetic underpinnings are similar in people, in fact there are also huge differences. So on one level, the fact that there is a genetic component to addiction is not very surprising. What i........ Read more »
Im, H., Hollander, J., Bali, P., & Kenny, P. (2010) MeCP2 controls BDNF expression and cocaine intake through homeostatic interactions with microRNA-212. Nature Neuroscience. DOI: 10.1038/nn.2615
- July 8, 2010
- 11:31 PM
- 885 views
Consider the CB(2) Receptor
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
A different destination for cannabinoids.
THC and its organic cousin, anandamide, do what they do by locking into both the CB1 receptor, discovered in 1988, and the CB2 receptor (as it is commonly written in shorthand), discovered 5 years later. THC and anandamide are CB receptor agonists, meaning they activate the receptors in question. (An antagonist blocks the receptor’s action.)
CB1 is a very common receptor in the central nervous system, and, when stimulated by an agonist, is responsible........ Read more »
Atwood, B., & Mackie, K. (2010) CB2: a cannabinoid receptor with an identity crisis. British Journal of Pharmacology, 160(3), 467-479. DOI: 10.1111/j.1476-5381.2010.00729.x
- June 20, 2010
- 02:00 PM
- 833 views
Vitamin B6 May Lower Risk of Lung Cancer
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
Large European study confirms earlier findings.
It doesn’t mean you should start popping handfuls of B vitamins if you are a smoker or a former smoker (those who never smoked rarely get the disease). What it appears to mean is that people with the highest levels of vitamin B6 in their bodies may have as little as half the risk of developing lung cancer as people with very low levels of B6--also known as pyridoxine.
In a June 16 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (........ Read more »
Mattias Johansson, et. al. (2010) Serum B Vitamin Levels and Risk of Lung Cancer. Journal of the American Medical Association, 303(23), 2377-2385. info:/
- June 10, 2010
- 08:21 PM
- 860 views
Choline for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders?
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
Common supplement may reduce cell death in pregnancies.
A common dietary supplement markedly decreases defects in the skull and brain formation of lab mice born to mothers exposed to alcohol, say researchers at the Medical College of Georgia.
Among the grisly list of potential effects caused by alcohol consumption during pregnancy, one involves a relatively obscure lipid called ceramide. Ceramide can markedly increase the rate of programmed cell death—a process known as apoptosis—and........ Read more »
Wang, G., & Bieberich, E. (2010) Prenatal alcohol exposure triggers ceramide-induced apoptosis in neural crest-derived tissues concurrent with defective cranial development. Cell Death and Disease, 1(5). DOI: 10.1038/cddis.2010.22
- May 24, 2010
- 06:11 PM
- 1,008 views
X-ed Out.
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
Another look at MDMA and serotonin.
A study by Canada’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) has confirmed earlier findings that chronic users of ecstasy (MDMA) have abnormally low levels of serotonin transporter molecules in the cerebral cortex.
While a decade of research on the effects of ecstasy on brain serotonin has been controversial and largely inconclusive, the latest study used drug hair analysis to confirm levels of MDMA in 49 users and 50 controls. An additional division ........ Read more »
Kish, S., Lerch, J., Furukawa, Y., Tong, J., McCluskey, T., Wilkins, D., Houle, S., Meyer, J., Mundo, E., Wilson, A.... (2010) Decreased cerebral cortical serotonin transporter binding in ecstasy users: a positron emission tomography/[11C]DASB and structural brain imaging study. Brain. DOI: 10.1093/brain/awq103
- May 13, 2010
- 09:30 PM
- 941 views
Cocaine Treatment and the Stroop Test
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
Treatment dropouts do poorly on color/word match.
It’s commonly used to demonstrate behavioral inhibition, but it’s also a nifty parlor game. It is called the Stroop Test, and it plays off the fact that people are far better at reading words than they are at intentionally ignoring them. To prove it, John Ridley Stroop’s 1935 Ph.D. thesis showed how difficult it is to interfere with the automatic processing of words. In the basic Stroop test, a list of color names is presented. However, th........ Read more »
Streeter, C., Terhune, D., Whitfield, T., Gruber, S., Sarid-Segal, O., Silveri, M., Tzilos, G., Afshar, M., Rouse, E., Tian, H.... (2007) Performance on the Stroop Predicts Treatment Compliance in Cocaine-Dependent Individuals. Neuropsychopharmacology, 33(4), 827-836. DOI: 10.1038/sj.npp.1301465
- April 6, 2010
- 03:36 PM
- 1,095 views
Impulsivity and Addiction
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
The perils of a hypersensitive dopamine system.
The brooding, antisocial loner, the one with impulse control problems, a penchant for risk-taking, and a cigarette dangling from his lip, is a recognizable archetype in popular culture. From Marlon Brando to Bruce Lee, these flawed heroes are perhaps the ones with restless brain chemicals; the ones who never felt good and never knew why (“What are you rebelling against?” “What’ve you got?”).
A recent study at Vanderbilt University, pu........ Read more »
Buckholtz, J., Treadway, M., Cowan, R., Woodward, N., Benning, S., Li, R., Ansari, M., Baldwin, R., Schwartzman, A., Shelby, E.... (2010) Mesolimbic dopamine reward system hypersensitivity in individuals with psychopathic traits. Nature Neuroscience, 13(4), 419-421. DOI: 10.1038/nn.2510
- March 23, 2010
- 04:35 PM
- 985 views
Meth Babies—Fact or Fiction?
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
Research team finds brain abnormalities.
When it came to babies born to crack-addicted mothers, the media went overboard, creating a crisis in the form of an epidemic that never quite was. By contrast, when it came to babies born to alcoholic mothers, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome went unrecognized in the science and medical community until 1968.
Now comes a study on prenatal methamphetamine exposure in The Journal of Neuroscience, headed up by Elizabeth Sowell of the University of California, Los ........ Read more »
Sowell, E., Leow, A., Bookheimer, S., Smith, L., O'Connor, M., Kan, E., Rosso, C., Houston, S., Dinov, I., & Thompson, P. (2010) Differentiating Prenatal Exposure to Methamphetamine and Alcohol versus Alcohol and Not Methamphetamine using Tensor-Based Brain Morphometry and Discriminant Analysis. Journal of Neuroscience, 30(11), 3876-3885. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4967-09.2010
Smith, L., LaGasse, L., Derauf, C., Grant, P., Shah, R., Arria, A., Huestis, M., Haning, W., Strauss, A., Grotta, S.... (2006) The Infant Development, Environment, and Lifestyle Study: Effects of Prenatal Methamphetamine Exposure, Polydrug Exposure, and Poverty on Intrauterine Growth. PEDIATRICS, 118(3), 1149-1156. DOI: 10.1542/peds.2005-2564
- March 18, 2010
- 08:12 PM
- 772 views
Germs in Tobacco
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
Bacteria found in major cigarette brands.
It’s not enough that smoking causes all manner of cardiopulmonary complications, or that more than 3,000 chemicals and heavy metals have been identified as additives. Now comes evidence that tobacco particles extracted from cigarettes contain markers for hundreds of known bacteria. Lung infections in some smokers may be caused by germs on shredded tobacco, rather than the act of smoking itself.
According to a report by Janet Raloff in Science News, Am........ Read more »
Sapkota, A., Berger, S., & Vogel, T. (2009) Human Pathogens Abundant in the Bacterial Metagenome of Cigarettes. Environmental Health Perspectives, 118(3), 351-356. DOI: 10.1289/ehp.0901201
Pauly, J., Smith, L., Rickert, M., Hutson, A., & Paszkiewicz, G. (2009) Review: Is lung inflammation associated with microbes and microbial toxins in cigarette tobacco smoke?. Immunologic Research, 46(1-3), 127-136. DOI: 10.1007/s12026-009-8117-6
- March 14, 2010
- 02:59 PM
- 720 views
The Cocaine Conundrum
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
Effective treatment remains elusive.
For addiction to cocaine, amphetamine, and other stimulants, the treatment picture has been complicated by the lack of any truly significant anti-craving medications. (See post, “No Pill for Stimulant Addiction"). The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has yet to approve any medications for the treatment of either cocaine or amphetamine addiction.
Take the case of cocaine. Partly the problem stems from the direct effect cocaine has on dopamine transm........ Read more »
Hiranita, T., Soto, P., Newman, A., & Katz, J. (2009) Assessment of Reinforcing Effects of Benztropine Analogs and Their Effects on Cocaine Self-Administration in Rats: Comparisons with Monoamine Uptake Inhibitors. Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, 329(2), 677-686. DOI: 10.1124/jpet.108.145813
- March 7, 2010
- 09:36 PM
- 706 views
The Perils of Fair-Weather Cocaine
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
The higher the temp, the higher the death rate.
As spring approaches, cocaine users might take note of further evidence of a connection between high ambient air temperatures and accidental overdoses.
A study published recently in the journal Addiction used mortality data from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in New York City from 1990 to 2006 to determine the frequency of cocaine-related overdoses (itself an enterprise fraught with uncertainty and argument over listed causes of death)......... Read more »
Bohnert, A., Prescott, M., Vlahov, D., Tardiff, K., & Galea, S. (2010) Ambient temperature and risk of death from accidental drug overdose in New York City, 1990-2006. Addiction. DOI: 10.1111/j.1360-0443.2009.02887.x
- February 21, 2010
- 05:38 PM
- 698 views
Of Mice and Methamphetamine
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
Diabetes drug being tested for addiction.
It’s a mouthful: peroxisome proliferator activated receptor gamma (PPAR-gamma).
Peroxisomes are specialized subunits inside cells that help metabolize various substances, including fatty acids and certain toxins. A blockbuster member of this drug family—Avandia—is a much disputed but immensely lucrative diabetes medicine that may cause heart failure.
(Partial Agonist Ppar Gamma Cocrystal)--------->
PPAR gamma agonists belong to a class ........ Read more »
Maeda, T., Kiguchi, N., Fukazawa, Y., Yamamoto, A., Ozaki, M., & Kishioka, S. (2006) Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor Gamma Activation Relieves Expression of Behavioral Sensitization to Methamphetamine in Mice. Neuropsychopharmacology, 32(5), 1133-1140. DOI: 10.1038/sj.npp.1301213
- November 30, 1999
- 12:00 AM
- 493 views
Let’s Get Cellular: Meth Metabolism
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
We know from the work of Nora Volkow and others that meth abusers have chronically low levels of dopamine D2 receptors in their brains. But what is going on in the rest of the body when methamphetamine addiction is running full force?... Read more »
Sun, L., Li, H., Seufferheld, M., Walters, K., Margam, V., Jannasch, A., Diaz, N., Riley, C., Sun, W., Li, Y.... (2011) Systems-Scale Analysis Reveals Pathways Involved in Cellular Response to Methamphetamine. PLoS ONE, 6(4). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0018215
- November 30, 1999
- 12:00 AM
- 540 views
Let’s Get Cellular: Meth Metabolism
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
We know from the work of Nora Volkow and others that meth abusers have chronically low levels of dopamine D2 receptors in their brains. But what is going on in the rest of the body when methamphetamine addiction is running full force?... Read more »
Sun, L., Li, H., Seufferheld, M., Walters, K., Margam, V., Jannasch, A., Diaz, N., Riley, C., Sun, W., Li, Y.... (2011) Systems-Scale Analysis Reveals Pathways Involved in Cellular Response to Methamphetamine. PLoS ONE, 6(4). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0018215
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