Treating heroin addicts by giving them heroin might seem counterintuitive. But for some of the most hardened addicts, administering heroin in supervised clinics may just do the trick where detox and methadone have failed. Following the lead of Switzerland and a handful of other countries, Britain recently concluded a four-year trial in which longtime addicts….
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Once a person’s body becomes accustomed to large amounts of alcohol on a daily basis, the brain and body cannot function normally without alcohol in the system. This condition can develop in matter of weeks in cases of frequent binge drinking or when consuming large quantities on a daily basis. Under these conditions, cutting back….
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Alcoholic dementia is often an overlooked type of memory dysfunction. It is estimated that about 8 percent of people in the U.S. over age 65 may have an alcohol abuse problem. Sixty percent of the elderly drink and 5 to 10 percent are binge drinkers. It may be hard to believe, but Medicare, which is….
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Cocaine is one of the oldest drugs known to humans, and its abuse has become widespread since the end of the 19th century. At the same time, we know rather little about its effects on the human brain or the mechanisms that lead to cocaine addiction. The latest article by Dr. Marco Leyton, of the….
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Alcoholic liver disease, also called alcoholic hepatitis, refers to a range of conditions and related symptoms that develop when the liver becomes damaged due to excessive intake of alcohol. While distinct from cirrhosis, alcoholic hepatitis is regarded as the earliest stage of alcoholic liver disease. Alcohol has long been associated with serious liver diseases such….
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