Publications by authors named "Debmayla Barh"

The Carter Center has estimated that the addiction crisis in the United States (US), if continues to worsen at the same rate, may cost the country approximately 16 trillion dollars by 2030. In recent years, the well-being of youth has been compromised by not only the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic but also the alarming global opioid crisis, particularly in the US. Each year, deadly opioid drugs claim hundreds of thousands of lives, contributing to an ever-rising death toll.

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One important area for consideration especially in terms of combating the ongoing never ending opioid crisis, relates to novel newer assessments for all addictive behaviors both substance and non-substance behaviors (RDS). It is very important to identify early in one's life the possibility of, because of known DNA antecedents, the presence of pre-addiction. The development of the Genetic Addiction Risk Severity (GARS) test, Blum's group believes that this type of testing should be the "standard of care" following additional studies.

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Addictions to smoking, alcohol, illicit drugs, and certain behaviors like gambling, overeating, and sex, are prevalent worldwide. These behaviors are highly destructive and costly to individuals and society due to health consequences, criminality and lost productivity. The genetic vulnerability, environmental exposures, and individual behaviors that contribute to the brain dysfunction and compulsive tendencies that mark addiction make it one of the most complicated diseases to study and treat.

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It is well established that inherited human aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH-2) deficiency reduces the risk for alcoholism. Kudzu plants and extracts have been used for 1,000 years in traditional Chinese medicine to treat alcoholism. Kudzu contains daidzin, which inhibits ALDH-2 and suppresses heavy drinking in rodents.

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Background and aims Many patients presenting multiple behaviors including drug and food abuse as well as other pathological repetitive unwanted activities such as gambling, self-mutilation and paraphilias may not be appropriately diagnosed. Here we present a case of a male presenting many of these seemingly diverse behaviors and finally diagnosed with reward deficiency syndrome (RDS) by his attending physician. Methods The use of the dopamine agonist, ropinirole after two weeks showed improvement in terms of sexual behavior but tolerance set in and was discontinued especially when an infraction occurred with the patient's insurance.

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Mindful of the new evolutionary ideas related to an emerging scientific focus known as omics, we propose that spiritual, social, and political behaviors may be tied in part to inheritable reward gene polymorphisms, as has been demonstrated for the addictions. If so, analyses of gene polymorphisms may assist in predicting liberalism or conservatism in partisan attachments. For example, both drinking (alcohol) and obesity seem to cluster in large social networks and are influenced by friends having the same genotype, in particular the DRD2 A1 allele.

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Opiate addiction is associated with many adverse health and social harms, fatal overdose, infectious disease transmission, elevated health care costs, public disorder, and crime. Although community-based addiction treatment programs continue to reduce the harms of opiate addiction with narcotic substitution therapy such as methadone maintenance, there remains a need to find a substance that not only blocks opiate-type receptors (mu, delta, etc.) but also provides agonistic activity; hence, the impetus arose for the development of a combination of narcotic antagonism and mu receptor agonist therapy.

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