all drug use and abuse stories

Study links steroid abuse to key biological, psychological characteristics

50443248 — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:35:07 -0400

A study by researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital sheds new light on anabolic steroid users, augmenting previous research suggesting that users can become dependent on the drugs and showing for the first time that those who do become dependent tend to share certain biological and psychological characteristics.

The findings could help in understanding who is most likely to become dependent on anabolic steroids as well as aid in efforts to both prevent and treat steroid dependence.

Study examines substance abuse prevalence among teens receiving routine medical care

404132862 — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 16:55:12 -0500

Approximately 15 percent of middle and upper middle class teens receiving routine outpatient medical care in a New England primary care network had positive results on a substance abuse questionnaire, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, a journal published by the American Medical Association.

Addiction illuminates concept of ‘free will’

50443248 — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 11:38:37 -0400

Whether humans possess free will or whether their actions are determined by something outside their conscious control is one of the most persistent problems in philosophy.

In a lecture May 9, Steven E. Hyman warned his audience that he would not attempt to resolve the issue of free will in an ultimate sense. He did, however, have some fascinating insights regarding a special instance of the free-will dilemma — namely, the neurochemical mechanisms that result in the loss of free will when a person becomes addicted to drugs.

“Drug addiction has been used as a yardstick for reward-based behavior,” said Hyman. “With addiction, there is a narrowing of life focus in that drug-seeking crowds out all other motivations and goals.”

Dietary supplements can cause harmful reactions with prescription medicines

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 10:28:39 -0400

More than one of every five people who take prescription drugs also use dietary supplements, like ginseng and gingko, without telling their doctors. Such combinations may lead to harmful results, such as interfering with the action of prescription medications taken for conditions ranging from insomnia to heart disease, cancer, and arthritis.

Nicotine vaccine to be tested at Massachusetts General Hospital

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:27:57 -0400

A novel approach to helping smokers kick the habit - a vaccine - will be tested at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). The nicotine vaccine NicVax is designed to keep nicotine from reaching the brain where it produces its rewarding effects. Earlier studies of the vaccine, which has not yet received FDA approval, have indicated that it is safe and may be effective.

"We currently have several proven ways to help smokers quit - including nicotine patches and gum and the antidepressant bupropion - but if someone using these medications slips and smokes a cigarette, he or she experiences rewarding sensations from smoking," says Nancy Rigotti, MD, director of the MGH Tobacco Research and Treatment Center, who will lead the study at the hospital. "Since this vaccine keeps nicotine out of the brain, smoking no longer has any pleasurable effects, and the smoker should find it easier to quit."

Although the immune system does not normally respond to nicotine, NicVax - manufactured by Nabi Biopharmaceuticals, which is sponsoring the current trial - is designed to elicit the production of nicotine antibodies. If someone smokes after being immunized, the antibodies bind with nicotine molecules in the bloodstream and prevent them from entering the brain where nicotine receptors are located.

The MGH is one of 10 centers across the country participating in the current study and is the only location in the Northeast.

New combination of treatments is effective for alcohol dependence

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:27:10 -0400

McLean Hospital researchers, along with colleagues from 11 other study sites nationwide, report that the medication naltrexone and up to 20 sessions of alcohol counseling delivered by a behavioral specialist are equally effective treatments for alcohol dependence when delivered with structured medical management in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Results from the National Institutes of Health-supported Combining Medications and Behavioral Interventions for Alcoholism (COMBINE) study show that patients who received naltrexone, specialized alcohol counseling, or both demonstrated the best drinking outcomes after 16 weeks of outpatient treatment. All patients also received Medical Management, an intervention that consisted of nine brief, structured outpatient sessions provided by a health care professional. Contrary to expectations, the researchers found no effect on drinking of the medication acamprosate and no additive benefit from adding acamprosate to naltrexone.

"This was the largest clinical trial looking at the effectiveness of pharmacologic and behavioral treatments for alcohol dependence ever conducted and the results are promising," said Roger Weiss, clinical director of the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment Program for McLean Hospital, a Harvard Medical School affiliate. Weiss was also the principal investigator of COMBINE for the McLean study site.

Study: No psychological or cognitive deficits from peyote

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:22:45 -0400

Researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital report that Native Americans who use the hallucinogen peyote regularly in connection with religious ceremonies show no evidence of brain damage or psychological problems.

In fact, members of the Navajo tribe who regularly use peyote actually scored significantly better on several measures of overall mental health than did subjects from the same tribe who were not members of the religious group and did not use the hallucinogen, according to a paper published in the Nov. 4, 2005 issue of Biological Psychiatry.

"We found no evidence that these Native Americans had residual neurocognitive problems. Despite lifelong participation in the peyote church, they performed just as well on mental tests as those who had never used peyote,'' said the study's first author John Halpern, MD, of McLean Hospital's Biological Psychiatry Laboratory. The study was funded, in part, by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Beyond that, the peyote users scored better on several measures of the Rand Mental Health Inventory (RMHI), a test used to diagnose psychological problems and determine overall mental health, he said. Among the RMHI scales are measures of anxiety, depression, loss of behavioral or emotional control, and psychological distress. Halpern emphasized that the better scores among peyote users were not necessarily attributable to the use of peyote itself, but more likely due to the social and psychological benefits of being members of the Native American Church community.

Critical step traced in anthrax infection

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:21:48 -0400

An anthrax bacterium secretes three nontoxic proteins that assemble into a toxic complex on the surface of the host cell to set off a chain of events leading to cell toxicity and death. Protective antigen (PA) is one of these proteins, and after binding to the cell, seven copies of it assemble into a specific complex that is capable of forming a pore in a cellular membrane. The pore permits the other two proteins to enter the cell interior, where the factors interfere with metabolic processes and can kill the infected individual.

The scientists demonstrated this role by investigating the channel's chemical make-up. Using cysteine-scanning mutagenesis, they identified the hydrophobic ("greasy") amino acid phenylalanine in protective antigen's pore-forming domain. Seven of these amino acids project into the lumen of the pore and form a collection of greasy residues, nicknamed "the phi- clamp" by the scientists. Because the water-filled lumen of the membrane pore is smaller than the folded lethal factor and edema factor, these proteins must first unfold before being actively translocated through the heptameric channel. The researchers demonstrated that the phi-clamp was critical to infection by mutating the region and blocking translocation of the toxin proteins.

R. John Collier, professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at HMS, and his colleagues found that the phi-clamp composes the main conductance-blocking site for hydrophobic drugs.

Blood vessel drugs halt cancer growth

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:20:58 -0400

After decades of surviving peer rejection of his theory of cancer treatment by blocking tiny blood vessels, Judah Folkman has gone on to develop drugs that did what he predicted they would do.

Folkman's endostatin, the drug Fortune magazine called a failure, was used to treat 486 patients with lung cancer in China. At Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, it has helped adult and pediatric cancer patients.

A related drug, called Avastin, is now used in 28 countries, including the U.S. It is also being tested on patients with kidney, breast, and ovarian cancers.

Folkman, a professor of pediatric surgery and cell biology at Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital in Boston, came up with the idea that tumors secrete proteins able to stimulate the growth of hair-thin blood vessels that bring them nutrients and carry away their wastes in 1961, while studying mice. He applied the name "angiogenesis," meaning "birth of blood vessels," to this process.

By 1997, Folkman and his colleagues at Boston's Children's Hospital found a natural compound they called endostatin, which blocks the growth of blood vessels and shrinks tumors without the usual harsh side effects of chemotherapy.

The battle over endostatin's efficacy as a drug, however, still rages, but Avastin enjoys good press, suggesting that the angiogenesis-blocker boom is on.

Kudzu cuts alcohol consumption

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:18:27 -0400

Scott Lukas, professor of psychiatry at McLean, a psychiatric hospital affiliated with Harvard Medical School, says these results inspired his team to test on humans. The study was conducted on 14 men and women, average age 24 years, in a "laboratory" apartment where each person was allowed to drink as many as six beers. After determining how much each person drinks normally, half were given a capsule of kudzu or an inactive pill, or placebo.

"Those who took kudzu drank significantly less than those on placebo," says Lukas. "[The kudzu group] downed an average of one or two beers while the placebo group finished three or four. Alcohol consumption was almost cut in half."

Those on kudzu also drank more slowly. "They needed more gulps to finish each beer," Lukas continues. "That tells us they are responding to cues from their brains telling them they don't need to drink so much."

Kudzu also causes few side effects. "We gave our subjects a low dose for one week," Lukas explains. "Then we gave them blood and urine tests and physical exams. No changes were found. If we raised the dose and gave it for a longer period, alcohol consumption might be decreased even more."

Although no one knows exactly why kudzu increases sobriety, researchers theorize that the herb speeds alcohol's effect on the head.

Drug combination boosts survival rate in head and neck cancers

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:20:38 -0400

Previous studies have shown that using combination chemotherapy of cisplatin and 5-fu yields a 25 to 50 percent rate of complete pathological responses (the tumor disappeared). Robert Haddad, M.D., and his colleagues found that adding the drug docetaxel to the cisplatin and 5-fu regimen significantly increased the complete pathological response rate to 89 percent.

Using data obtained from treating 72 patients with locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, the researchers project that the three-drug combination would result in a 95 percent two-year survival rate and a 90 percent five-year survival rate. The majority of these patients have stage IV disease.

"These results are very encouraging and in all likelihood will translate into a significantly more effective treatment for patients with advanced head and neck cancer," says Haddad. "This patient population historically has had a poor prognosis, but, given these findings, the outlook is more hopeful."

The drug combination is given for three cycles as an initial treatment known as induction chemotherapy to shrink tumors prior to several weeks of intense treatment with additional chemotherapy given along with radiation. This "sequential therapy" has brought about the most successful results in patients with these stubborn cancers. Cancers of the head and neck are diagnosed in more than 40,000 people in the United States each year, with about 7,200 deaths.

Safer cigarettes would cut fire deaths if made available

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:36:25 -0400

Researchers at Harvard School of Public Health, funded by the American Legacy Foundation, compared the physical properties of cigarettes sold in New York with cigarettes of the same brands sold in Massachusetts and California. The researchers found: • That while not perfectly self-extinguishing, New York cigarettes were far less likely to burn to the end than cigarettes of the same brands in California and Massachusetts. Ten percent of a sample of five major cigarette brands sold in New York had a "full burn" compared to 99.8 percent of the California and Massachusetts cigarettes tested. • Reduced ignition was apparently achieved through banding of the cigarette paper. • Reviewing cigarette tax data for the past six months, the reduced ignition propensity (RIP) cigarettes appeared to have no effect on sales of cigarettes in New York, indicating consumer acceptance. • Based on the New York experience, prior industry objections to RIP cigarettes are unfounded, the report concludes. There is no valid reason why cigarette manufacturers should not sell RIP cigarettes nationwide.

One alcoholic drink per day improves cognitive function among older women

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:19:51 -0400

According to the study's senior author, BWH's Francine Grodstein, Sc.D., "Much evidence has demonstrated the heart benefits of light alcohol drinking, but less research has focused on cognitive functioning. While we all continue to recommend exercising caution when consuming any type of alcohol, our study suggests that moderate consumption might provide older women some cognitive benefits."

Researchers reviewed data from 12,480 women, 70 to 81 years old, who participated in the Nurses' Health Study. They first collected alcohol consumption data as part of food-frequency questionnaires issued every few years between 1980 and 1998. Alcohol intake was measured in grams of beer, wine and liquor, with moderate consumption - one glass per day - defined as less than 15 grams per day. Then, from 1995-2002, women participated in telephone-based cognitive surveys in which general cognition and verbal memory and fluency were evaluated. Women who consumed less than 15 grams of alcohol per day - moderate drinkers - had better mean cognitive scores than nondrinkers. Researchers also found no significant difference in cognitive functioning among the nondrinkers and those who consumed more than one drink per day. Also, there did not seem to be any substantial difference in the effects of different forms of alcoholic beverages.

"Given our large study population, this body of research is now powerful enough to suggest continued research to ultimately better understand the impact moderate alcohol has on cognitive function," said HSPH's Meir Stampfer, M.D.

Study finds heavy drinking linked to higher stroke risk

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 07:09:51 -0400

A study found that while light and moderate drinkers appear to be at neither greater risk nor greater advantage than abstainers when it comes to ischemic stroke, the frequency of their alcohol consumption may modestly influence their risk. The findings reinforce the importance of the volume and frequency of alcohol consumption.

"In this study, the participants who were at lowest risk for stroke were the men who consumed one or two drinks on three to four days of the week," says lead author Kenneth Mukamal, MD, MPH.

Method automates capture of cell image data

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:36:38 -0400

A new type of drug profiling will be useful in identifying the biological targets of experimental compounds and predicting drug toxicity. "This work brings microscopy into the 'omics' era," said Timothy Mitchison, the Hasib Sabbagh professor of systems biology, codirector of the Harvard Medical School Institute of Chemistry and Cell Biology (ICCB) and co-author on the work, which was reported in the Nov. 12, 2004 Science. In the study, the researchers treated human cancer cells with widely varying concentrations of 100 different chemical compounds known to affect cell growth and metabolism. To measure changes in the cells' behavior, they used fluorescent stains for DNA and 10 different proteins.