Posted on 06/26/2006 12:27:57 AM PDT by neverdem
Last month, the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was host to a conference about addiction for a small, invitation-only crowd of neuroscientists, clinicians and public policy makers. It was an unusual gathering. Addiction conferences are usually sober affairs, but M.I.T. offered a lavish cocktail reception (with an open bar, no less). More important, the conference was a celebration of the new ways scientists and addiction researchers are conceptualizing, and seeking to treat, addiction. While many in the treatment field have long called addiction a "disease," they've used the word in vague and metaphorical ways, meaning everything from a disease of the mind to a disease of the spirit. Many assumed that an addict suffers from a brain-chemistry problem, but scientists had not been able to peer into our heads to begin to prove it.
Now they can, using advances in brain-imaging technology. And they tend to agree on what they see, although not necessarily on how to fix it: addiction — whether to alcohol, to drugs or even to behaviors like gambling — appears to be a complicated disorder affecting brain processes responsible for motivation, decision making, pleasure seeking, inhibitory control and the way we learn and consolidate information and experiences. This new research, in turn, is fueling a vast effort by scientists and pharmaceutical companies to develop medications and vaccines to treat addiction. The National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism are studying, or financing studies on, more than 200 addiction medications.
The search for pharmacology to treat addiction is not new. The history of addiction treatment in America is rife with supposed miracle medications and "cures," most of which turned out to be useless. But there are a handful of drugs — some developed...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Well, I tried but I just couldn't get myself to take it that often.
That Xenova has effective vaccines for cocaine and nicotine addiction, and NABI has developed a nicotine vaccine--that's STUNNING. If this is true, then parents should want to get their kids vaccinated to ensure they never get hooked on this stuff. Are you unethically forcing a kid to get a vaccination for something when that something isn't clinically an illness (i.e., smoking)?
Clockwork Orange.
Interesting article
Yeah but what about a guy who likes beer just a little too much?
Yeah but what about a guy who likes beer just a little too much?
Will they have a pill to cure the need for the pill?.
"Just say 'no'"---AND TAKE YOUR MEDS!
Freeping is addictive, you know.
A vaccine for addiction doesn't mean they'll never try it... it just means it won't be addictive. That would actually make it easier (less risky) to do those drugs.
If the vaccine also largely negates whatever high nicotine or coke might bring, which was the impression I got from the article, using those drugs would also be fruitless. Smoke and snort all you want, you're still sober as a churchmouse, but now you smell funny, too. Might be 'easier' but wouldn't be any fun even if it was.
Offer the vaccination in the form of a tattoo, they'll get in line for it.
"If the vaccine also largely negates whatever high nicotine or coke might bring, which was the impression I got from the article, using those drugs would also be fruitless."
I didn't read the article but if that's what it's about it won't work for alcoholics because as much as they may like their beer they like the buzz even more. They'll just quit taking the pill and be back in the same pitiful condition.
What a difference this could make for so many people. I hope it will come to fruition. I hope they will find possibilities for understanding and finding ways to alleviate other complicated emotional and mental disorders.
I enjoy food very much. Dieting is really no trouble for me if I can eat a lot of good-tasting, healthy foods. But I get a very big "high" out of eating spicy, rich-tasting foods. Doesn't seem to matter what it is, so I'm lucky not to crave fats or chocolate.
She (and her daughter) have NO appetite. She does get pleasure from watching others enjoy eating food, but part of that is a feeling of wonder. She only eats so she doesn't feel sick. She has *never* found a food that makes her eyes roll back in her head with pleasure. Her daughter is the same way and is very lanky.
Back in the mid-90's I was fighting with my weight and was put on Phen-Fen. For the month that I took it, for the first time in my life, eating food had the same appeal as eating an old shoe. I ate only when I got dizzy and nauseated and only enough to take the edge off. I just had no desire. This is what she feels, all the time. Eating, for her, is not pleasurable. It’s an annoying part of life that has to be dealt with and she’d be happy if she never had to do it again.
For me, eating is such an important part of life that sometimes it’s the only thing that cheers me up. “Life may be crap right now, but at least I have bagels and kippers!”
All this has really opened my heart to all the chubbies out there. When I look at my friends who can’t gain weight for the life of them and what they do instinctively, it really does hit home that much of this is biochemical. I’ve had too many friends who have had the self-discipline to loose lots of weight, but who can’t keep it off to save their lives and none of my skinny friends intentionally do a damn thing to stay that way.
There was a segment on 20/20 with John Stossel last Friday, IIRC. The take home point was those who were overweight were more sedentary. Those who are not were always doing something to burn up calories, e.g. standing while using a keyboard, physical games and activities with kids, etc. This ignores the argument about inherited metabolic differences and whether the flora in our guts made a difference in caloric intake.
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