What Is Nicotine Addiction?

The so-called smoking addiction. In medicine, the scientific name of smoking addiction is nicotine addiction or nicotine dependence, which means that people who smoke for a long time develop addiction to the main substance nicotine contained in tobacco. Addiction. In medicine, tobacco addiction (nicotine addiction) is treated as a chronic disease.

Smoking addiction

The so-called smoking addiction, medically,

With the improvement of people's living standards and the development of society, people are more and more aware of the dangers of smoking. But there are still many complicated reasons why there are still a large number of smokers. According to surveys, the main causes of people's smoking are:

First, the need for social interaction;

2. Influence between friends;

Third, work too tired, smoking can relax;

Fourth, stay up late often, smoking can be refreshing;

Fifth, curiosity drives, but has become addicted;

6. The smoking influence and self-image positioning of other people in the family.

Seven, personal mood swings, dull mood

Smokers often have

Lead: cigarettes, spirits, drugs, and sex, why are we so fascinated by these things? Scientists have been exploring the secrets of "addiction" for a long time. Why are certain substances so easy to "hook us"? Why are some people particularly vulnerable to being captives to spirits, drugs and nicotine?

The social costs of addiction are undisputed: smoking causes an increase in cancer and heart disease, alcoholism is the main cause of domestic violence and car accidents, and heroin and cocaine injections cause an AIDS epidemic. According to statistics, due to direct or indirect reasons brought by drugs, cigarettes and spirits, such patients have accounted for one third of all hospitalized patients and one quarter of the total number of deaths. In particular, "addiction" has become the culprit in major cases of violence. In the United States, medical and social costs due to drugs have reached $ 240 billion.

With the flood of drugs, many drug addicts are trapped in mud pits and cannot extricate themselves. When a drug addiction occurs, they feel sadder than death. Scientists have been investigating the secrets of "addiction" for a long time. Why are some substances so easy to "hook us"? Why are some people particularly vulnerable to being captives to spirits, drugs and nicotine? But others can finally get rid of them?

Many scientists now believe that the answer is much simpler than people think, because of the level of a substance called dopamine in the brain. In fact, the relationship between "addiction" to dopamine is so strong that it corrects the past belief that drug use was simply a bad quality of the individual.

Many smokers finally awakened after a long-term victimization, and went to court to file charges against the tobacco companies. In the face of more and more complaints, the Liggett Group, one of the top five tobacco companies in the U.S., finally took the lead to admit that cigarettes were not only addictive, but they knew that at this point. Other companies are still entangled in the courts with the victims, insisting that smokers are not addicted and want to stop, but that they are their personal free choices. Faced with increasing scientific evidence, their claims are increasingly untenable. Over the past year, scientists have found that testing dopamine-rich areas of the brain, nicotine works very similarly to cocaine. Last month, a federal judge ruled for the first time that the Food and Drug Administration has the power to make tobacco a drug and cigarettes a carrier of drug transmission.

A scientific team headed by psychiatrist Nora Livingkov at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York wrote in a newly published (nature) journal that fluctuations in dopamine in the brain of drug users can indicate the level of drug addiction, The article describes how they use advanced brain scanning technology to track and evidence how closely dopamine rises and the euphoria of drug use.

Dopamine, like serotonin, is a neurotransmitter that transmits neuron information from one part of the brain to another. Serotonin is associated with emotional sadness and depression, while dopamine is closely linked with excitement and joy. Sometimes a hug, a kiss, a word of praise, or even winning a deck of cards can cause dopamine to rise. The intense excitement is like the action of drugs.

It is this simple substance that has made people "persistent" to drugs and even small cigarettes, which has greatly shocked scientists and inspired them. In the past, they have been searching extensively for similar dependencies, complex chemical reactions, and so on. Now they believe that dopamine is not only a chemical that transmits excitement, but also the "culprit" that causes addiction.

However, this is not to say that it's just that a substance called dopamine is involved in the addictive evil. In fact, the brain's change process is much more complicated. Drugs cause various physiological and chemical activities inside the brain. Regional issues affect each other. As Dr. Nestler of Yale University School of Medicine said, "Drugs play an important role, and it changes many physiological mechanisms in the brain."

Regardless, recognizing the role of dopamine is an important advance, providing a basis for deciphering the genetic code; how can too much dopamine combined with environmental impacts lead to serious behavioral problems? How serious is the abuse of drugs? Psychological problems? Are their drug use related to the quirks of the sky? Maybe because they can't absorb more dopamine, which leads them to seek drugs to satisfy their excitement? This speculation is controversial. It assumes that most people will have a drug addiction What is not controversial is the heavy social cost of drug use.

Although scientists don't understand its exact mechanism, it is increasingly convinced that dopamine plays a key important role in the widespread "addiction" of heroin, nicotine, alcohol and cannabis.

For nearly a quarter of a century, the United States has been declaring war on drugs with little success. In the past, it was generally believed that drug use was merely a degradation of personal qualities, but now it is gradually realized that there are other reasons for an inherent physiological basis. As Volkov announced: "Addiction is a disorder of the brain's mechanism, and it's no different than other people with mental illness."

Dopamine's hypothesis has made an important contribution to the fight against drugs, it has completed the connection from addictive mechanisms to treatment programs, and has provided hope for more effective treatments. Persistent detoxification not only stops the physical and psychological effects of drugs on the human body. Damage, and there is a complete possibility of cure.

Genetic and social factors can contribute to people's addiction to drugs, but they have not been targeted (she) must not be extricated for life. Rios was born in a New York City: drug-ridden area, his father died of alcoholism, and for decades he has lived a dual personality life. On the one hand, he graduated from Harvard Law School, in a well-known Working in a law firm, on the other hand he often secretly injects drugs. A few years ago, he made up his mind to succeed in eliminating this vice, and now he has become the director of a Chicago detoxification clinic.

Experts believe that people's drug addiction is not accidental. Dopamine plays a considerable role in a certain region of our brain. If the level of dopamine is low, it will cause tremor paralysis similar to Parkinson's disease. If it is too high, , It will cause hallucinations and even split the mind. Nicotine, heroin and alcohol can increase dopamine levels. 1975. A psychiatrist from a university in Canada made breakthrough progress in the study of "addiction". Some of the mice in their laboratory suddenly became safe and secure. Why? They originally injected the mice with drugs. To block the effect of dopamine. In fact, addicts don't crave for heroin, nicotine, or alcohol per se, but instead require these things to be active in producing dopamine.

The new discovery of the role of dopamine provides a powerful clue to the anti-drug war. Scanning the brains of addicts found some significant changes, including the weakening of glucose activity that supports neurons' work, indicating that in the most abundant regions of dopamine- The brain's prefrontal cortex has been hit or damaged, and it's a place that specifically controls impulsive and ridiculous behavior. Da Massio, a psychiatrist at the University of Iowa, and his colleagues believe that it is an important area that controls people's behavior and feelings. Any damage in this area will have a significant impact on a person's mental state. Medical scans of the brains of some natural melancholic patients have shown that this area is significantly smaller than normal.

Anyone who is skeptical about genetic changes affecting people's behavior can see proof from mice in Karen's lab that tireless rodents run around in cages all day long, and they rarely stop to eat and drink Sleep, so lose weight. -exhausted. Why is this happening? Karen, a biochemical expert at the Howard Medical Laboratory at Duke University, believes that it is due to the high level of dopamine, and because they lack the genetic mechanism to convert this substance, this has resulted in so many dopamine accumulations In mice, although no drugs have been injected, they have become like addicts who regularly use cocaine, with continuous impulses and energy loss. -::

Preliminary evidence suggests that dopamine may be related to some of us who are particularly interested in foods such as coffee and candy. Dopamine may also be related to gambling, chocolate and sex. For years, scientists have been wondering why some people are addicted to drugs and some Can humans be relieved, does the gene play an important role here? But until now they have not been able to use molecular weapons to unlock this secret. Karen's laboratory mouse is the latest example, and they plan to change a certain gene in the mouse. So that they are not interested in cocaine, heroin or alcohol at high levels of dopamine. "It's exciting," said Karen. "We can use them as a test to see how drugs work through the dopamine system. "

Scientists have studied some of the dopamine genes that cause alcohol and drug addiction; they envisage controlling the genetic variation of these genes so that they can quickly clear dopamine from the chromosome, just like Karen's lab rats, although the dopamine levels are high , But does not cause addiction, enabling people to eliminate or weaken the root causes of violent and impulsive behavior.

Most scientists believe that addiction may involve environmental impacts and the complex interplay of multiple genes, some of which indirectly affect dopamine activity. Many people become alcoholic addicts because of genetic conditions, and some genes cause low dopamine levels also related to behavioral perversion; such as severe alcoholism, pathological gambling, and excessive drinking. The better scientists understand the biological mechanisms that form addiction, the brighter the prospect of curing "addiction"; for example, the Fowler team discovered a substance that causes smoking addiction, a drug originally used to treat Parkinson's It has played a certain role in stopping smoking addiction and opened a new way for smoking cessation treatment. A research team at Yale University has discovered another compound that can relieve "drug addiction" in mice. Researchers say that one day they will make the compound a plaster and stick it on patients' skin to help them correct their drug abuse habits. They can also make a nicotine-proof plaster that can help smokers get rid of "old gun".

Realistically speaking, no one believes that the drug problem can be solved by drug treatment alone. In fact, due to the continuous development of research fields, a large number of physical therapy and psychological therapy have also emerged. Some patients have been around for 10 weeks. The treatment not only improved the demeanor, but also the normal physiological activity of the brain.

In the United States, which is entering a new and old century, drug addiction has become an unprecedented serious social problem. A large amount of evidence shows that treatment work is overwhelming and difficult. To date, policy makers have tackled the drug problem primarily as a social crime problem. The United States has spent $ 15 billion on anti-drug warfare, but only a third of it was used for prevention and treatment. "From my point of view, we've turned things upside down, and because of too much reliance on dealing with drugs to deal with crime, we have delayed a lot of treatment problems," said Lewis, director of the Center for Alcohol and Drug Research at Brown University School of Medicine.

Ironically, the biggest obstacle to treatment comes from the view that eradicating drug addiction is a waste of money. Although the development of drug addiction is the same as other chronic diseases, there is no obvious improvement, and nearly half of patients Years later, the old disease was repeated, and in fact, this is similar to the recurrence rate of diabetes, hypertension and other people who give up diet, exercise and treatment. Lesner, director of the National Institute of Drug Research, believes that doctors should stick to their work. This is a long-term job, not an expedient measure. "A certain degree of relapse is normal." He said: "This shows that Needs more treatment. "

Compared with many other drug addicts, Rios is fortunate. The reason why he can recover is not only due to persistent treatment, but also because he is strong-willed and determined. For some time, he even was afraid to see his naked arms, so as not to provoke his addiction. For those who are addicted and unable to extricate themselves, such an effort is not only what his relatives and friends expect, but also the most important. They have every reason to treat the cure of addiction as a medical and public health issue. In fact, this is exactly the case.