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What can we learn from the placebo effect?
An article in The Economist this week – “Think yourself better” – examined the effectiveness of alternative medical treatments such as acupuncture, crystal healing, Reiki channelling, and herbal remedies. Alternative medicine a booming business. Survey results released by the US National Institutes of Health found that in 2002 62.1% of adults in the country had…
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Children with ADHD have greater likelihood of trying substances and developing substance use disorders.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most commonly diagnosed disorders in childhood. In fact, estimates of the rates of ADHD had found that between 5-10 percent of all children meet diagnostic criteria for the disorder. Children with and without ADHD, at a group level, show several differences, including poorer school performance, more…
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Teens and drugs: Drug use statistics and a different approach to prevention
Here are some drug use statistics: Over 80% of teens engage in some form of deviant behavior (1). Over 50% of high-school seniors admit to having used drugs (2). Only 10%-15% of the population develop drug addiction problems related to their drug use (1). The question is: If the majority of teens experiment with drug…
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Helping Addicts with medications for cravings
If we could make it so drug addicts could stop craving the substances that have brought them to their knees, would relapse rates drop and addiction-treatment success rates soar? I sure hope so! Medications that stop cravings? I’ve already written about a study by the renowned addiction researcher Barry Everitt showing that medications could be…
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Marijuana as a Treatment for PTSD?
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has received wave of criticism over the department’s prohibition on providing prescriptions for medical marijuana to patients, even for patients living in the 14 states that have legalized medical marijuana. State and federal political differences appear to be playing a role in the decision, as the Drug Enforcement Agency…
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Treatments for ADHD – and the forgotten role of motivation
Research on the treatments for ADHD suggest that even the most effective treatments may not be sufficient for improving outcomes for children with ADHD diagnoses. Current treatments have a predominately person-biased approach to conceptualizing and treating the disorder. For example, the largest study conducted to assess the efficacy of ADHD interventions pitted medication and psychosocial…
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The Ethics of Neuroenhancement
A recent issue of the New Yorker featured a wide-ranging and engagingly written review of the current controversy over the ethics of neuroenhancement. Neuroenhancement refers to the growing trend of off-label use of psychiatric drugs by men and women of all ages and backgrounds for the purpose of boosting their brain power and ability to…
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It’s drug time – Circadian rhythms and addiction
From: all-about-addiction.com Like most living creatures, humans have internal biological clocks known as circadian rhythms. These internal cycles synchronize our bodies with the Earth’s 24-hour day/night cycle and prepare us for predictable daily events (1). Circadian rhythms regulate a number of bodily functions including temperature, hormone secretion, bowel movements, and sleep (2). Well, recent research…