http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog Addiction and Drug Education Blogs and Podcasts, looking at drug use trends and treatment, and how addiction is tied to the brain as well as the body Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:29:50 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 2007-2008 service@cnsproductions.com (CNS Productions) service@cnsproductions.com (CNS Productions) Addiction education 1440 http://www.cnsproductions.com/144logo.jpg http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog 144 144 A leader in the creation of drug education books and videos for educators, health care professionals and the public --- used by treatment facilities, counselor-training programs, law enforcement, and businesses and industries concerned about drugs in t... Addiction and Drug Education Blogs and Podcasts, looking at drug use trends and treatment, and how addiction is tied to the brain as well as the body addiction, drugs, education, recovery, substance abuse education, prevention, chemical dependency, AOD CNS Productions CNS Productions service@cnsproductions.com no no http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/uppers/639/ http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/uppers/639/#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:39:44 +0000 CNS http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/?p=639 http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/uppers/639/feed/ 0 00:01:01 A recent story in the Wall Street Journal highlights some significant benefits to drinking coffee. Also a look at the new "anti-energy" drinks like Drank, ... A recent story in the Wall Street Journal highlights some significant benefits to drinking coffee. Also a look at the new "anti-energy" drinks like Drank, containing calming herbs like chamomile, melatonin, valerian root and rose hip. Dr Inaba comments include the every-few-decades cycling of the kind of drugs that are popular. Listen to podcast Transcript (edited): CNS:    Hi and welcome once again to the CNS Addiction Podcast. I'm Howard LaMere, here with Dr Darryl Inaba. One of the topics we focused on recently was the negative aspects of coffee and caffeine, and here is an article in the (December 31, 2009) Wall Street Journal about the positive aspects of coffee. DARRYL: Quite a surprising story, an amazing one published by the WSJ which is fairly investigative and conservative in their reporting, and they published this just before Christmas, when people are gearing up for the Holidays  - the after-dinner coffees, and coffees during the day, so it was good timing. Contrary to many older studies which outline the negative aspects, the hazards and the addictive properties of coffee, this study showed positive results, amazing results from the practice of drinking coffee. Six cups of standard coffee lowered the risk of prostate cancer, 5 cups lowered the risk of Alzheimer’s by 65% in a Finnish study … that alone is enough to inspire me to go back to drinking coffee after I have been clean from coffee for some 30 something years.  I haven’t touched a drop of coffee because when I start I can’t seem to stop, I’ll go way above 6 cups, I’ll go up to 20 cups a day. But if 5 cups per day can lower the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by 65% that is saying something. It also cuts the possibility of stroke in women, and reduced the risk of developing Type II diabetes, which impacts a huge number of people in the United States. Close to 80 million people are pre-diabetic or diabetic type IIs so if 4 cups a day can cut that by 25 – 35 %, that’s a huge health benefit. The study also claims coffee cuts the risk of gallstones, and lowers the risk of committing suicide. That surprised me because one of the problems with drinking coffee in excess is the crash.  According to this study, people that drink at least 2 cups of coffee a day cut the risk of suicide by 60%.  All these positive things are quite amazing. The older studies found increased hypertension – high blood pressure, cardiac or heart irritability with a propensity to develop irregular heart beat, increased stroke risk, and risk of miscarriage. A recent study says that pregnant women who drink 3 cups a day increase the risk of miscarriage. A lot of major hazards, GI irritability, maybe even some cancers of the stomach are on the opposite side of these health benefits. So the jury is still out about if it’s positively good for you, or positively bad for you, but it seems like there’s a lot of good news about coffee drinking. CNS:    How are these studies conducted, it’s hard to do a regular double-blind test. DARRYL: This is purely anecdotal. These are just reports - asking questions of people, and that’s why these studies are controversial. Researchers will ask people how many cups of coffee they drink a day, over how long a period of time, because they want to gage results on a longitudinal basis, to see what risks are connected. A lot of people aren't going to remember how many cups of coffee they drank over the last ten years. And people are either stimulus-augmenters, or stimulus-reducers, I find very few people who are stimulus-normal.  And that means, some people are going to exaggerate - think they drank a higher number, and some will be stimulus-reducers; thinking they drink a lesser number per day. CNS:    So what do make of the effect you mentioned of the stimulant effect on blood pressure - high blood pressure and heart disease - it sounds like its very contradictory. The article also mentions other substances bes Dr. Darryl Inaba, History and cycles of drug use, In the News, Podcasts, Uppers, coffee CNS Productions no no http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/uppers/628/ http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/uppers/628/#comments Fri, 11 Dec 2009 23:22:41 +0000 CNS http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/?p=628 http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/uppers/628/feed/ 0 00:01:01 People with substance abuse issues often find that the Holiday Season can bring up old wounds - we look at some of the issues around ... People with substance abuse issues often find that the Holiday Season can bring up old wounds - we look at some of the issues around guilt for the addicted person. Also news about treatment for gambling addiction, and a chat about the addictive qualities of caffeine. Listen to podcast Transcript (edited): Welcome to the CNS podcast featuring Dr Darryl Inaba research director for CNS Productions. CNS: Hi and welcome once again to the addiction podcast from CNS Productions, I’m Howard LaMere here with Dr. Darryl Inaba. Darryl, in continuing with the holiday motif, we’re talking about guilt as one of the reasons for an increase in addiction during the holidays. Darryl: I think it’s absolutely accurate. Lynn O’Connor of Wright Institute did a study of women who seem to have more guilt and shame than men. The study looked at addicts and alcoholics entering treatment and measured guilt, shame and alpha-beta pride and found that those coming into treatment suffer tremendous amount of guilt, tremendous amount of shame about they’ve done. They have a low self esteem, low pride in themselves and are on the receiving end of a lot of anger from their families who have seen them make promise after promise only to break them all.  Recently I’ve been working with gamblers and I am finding this anger more prevalent in gambler families. During the holidays there is a lot of societal pressure to interact with friends and family - those we might have injured and hurt, so there is going to be a lot more guilt, shame, and feelings of low self esteem, which contribute to the desire to alter your state of conscientiousness. The easiest way for people with compulsive disorders to alter their states of consciousness is to partake in those activities that screen or suppress their feelings of guilt and shame for a while. This desire to feel better leads to more slips and therefore more relapses during the holiday season. CNS: More so than the rest of the year, just because of the pressure. We’ve talked about drug relapses, we’ve talked about food. Now there’s another topic in the news – caffeine addiction. A report from the surgeon general stated that caffeine was habituating, rather than addicting. I don’t think anyone who drinks coffee would dispute the fact that it’s addicting. I mean I have to have that first cup of coffee in the morning, I try, I try having tea, green tea, which has caffeine anyway and it’s still not the same. I mean, there’s something very addictive about caffeine and so how can anyone say it’s not addictive? Darryl: Well, it goes beyond denial, there’s certainly going to be denial in terms of any kind of addiction. When it comes to caffeine it’s almost a cultural reticence or a fear that this - the last thing left to alter our states of conciseness - is going to be taken away, or looked on negatively, and so caffeine… CNS: More guilt… Darryl: A lot more guilt.  Caffeine has remained under the radar for lots of reasons. It’s escaped any crucial examination. We’ve looking at nicotine and other substances like alcohol, but caffeine is probably the last thing we’ll look at with that much scrutiny. Caffeine is defiantly an addictive substance. It’s a xanthine alkaloid, it’s a stimulant, it creates similar, although at much lower levels and intensity, changes in the body as does cocaine, and nicotine and methamphetamine. It affects the same processes in the brain. Scientists have looked at caffeine for a long time and believe that anytime you drink over five hundred milligrams a day of caffeine, your brain and your brain chemistry is altered. Researches see the beginnings of compulsive or addictive tendencies.  Above eight hundred to one thousand two hundred milligrams of caffeine a day a person begins to have negative body toxic effects. I’ve always felt that caffeine maybe responsible for a lot more deaths than cocaine and heroin just from the toxic effects i Compulsive Behaviors, Dr. Darryl Inaba, In the News, Podcasts, Recovery & relapse, Treatment & Testing, Understanding Addictions & Brain Chemistry, Uppers CNS Productions no no http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/444/ http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/444/#comments Fri, 07 Aug 2009 22:49:47 +0000 CNS http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/?p=444 http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/444/feed/ 0 00:01:01 Our Addiction Radio podcast looks at the synergistic effects of combining alcohol with caffeine, as well as electronic or e-cigarettes, the attractiveness of both to ... Our Addiction Radio podcast looks at the synergistic effects of combining alcohol with caffeine, as well as electronic or e-cigarettes, the attractiveness of both to younger audiences, and effects of marketing. Transcript of podcast (click to listen): CNS: Hi and welcome to the CNS addiction pod cast, I’m Howard LaMere,  here with Dr Darryl Inaba, and Darryl there’s a bunch of interesting things in the news this week, and I don’t know, which you might want to comment on but just a quick list just for the benefit of people listening. Alcohol and caffeine drinks is being targeted by concerned people in the government as something as maybe needs some regulation, electronic cigarettes where also in the news being something that’s a largely made in China, and the health concerns around that and especially unknown additives and um, the continuation of the story about Michael Jackson and the propofol anesthetic. The abuse of that especially by the medical and medical profession itself as well as high profile folks that afford that can afford it. Maybe the one you’re looking at there a alcohol & caffeine drinks might be of something, might be something to chat about a bit. Darryl: Howard actually those are all phenomenal developments and are interesting things to talk about. We’ve noticed this, this growth of caffeinated alcoholic beverages along time ago not just the fact that right now they’re coming out combined together where they’re mixing um, the vodka and the bourbon and the other things right along with the a soda and the fruit drinks in the, in the can that are sodas combined project, and of course that can supposedly only goes to adults twenty one years old. The youth are the ones and under aged drinkers are the ones who are most attracted by these types’ drinks. But prior to that there was, there is, still a huge growth in, what they call the bomb technique, out here, the bomb, there’s actually I think many of the bars now have specialized mini bars that, that target and focus on the combination of energy drinks with a shot of some sort of liqueur or some sort of liquid. The most popular one I’ve seen is Jägermeister. Where one club here in the local area has a special bar that specializes with a red bull drinks. With red bull in a glass and then a shot of Jägermeister mixing that together foams up when it’s mixed together drinking that down, another club here has a rockstar.  Rockstar is the one they like where they mix it with Rockstar and then another one has Monster, it depends on which popular energy drinks that people are interested in. But it’s a phenomenon that really goes back to the old concept of a speed ball where you mix both a drug of stimulatory brain activity with another drug of depressant activity in the brain and in all fairness the a, and when we looked at that in pharmacology as, what happens when you combine an upper and a downer usually the results were you get better effects than either of them alone. That the people who took or were exposed to morphine and cocaine or amphetamine and some sort of depressant drugs that, that was the best high they ever got was a combination CNS: Yeah it doesn’t cancel each other out it doesn’t make you like normal. Darryl: Yeah that’s the bigger myth or misunderstanding that they’re going to be an antidote for each other. And so if you od on one you can be wakened up by the other or if you’re too over amped you can be put to sleep by the downer and they’re, they’re not true antagonist they don’t cancel out each other but what’s interesting is that they’re physic effects or the emotional effects that people get out of them when they’re combined seems to be almost additive or synergistic. Rather than canceling they actually augment each other. People really feel better when you, when you combine them so that’s one aspect about these energy drinks and caffeine being mixed with alcohol that you’re going Alcohol, Dr. Darryl Inaba, In the News, Podcasts, Smoking, tobacco & nicotine CNS Productions no no