The Sara Bellum Blog

For anyone who resolves to stop smoking, help is as close as your cell phone.

According to NIDA’s 2011 Monitoring the Future survey results, teen smoking rates are currently at their lowest since the survey began in 1975. However, many teens continue to take up the habit—19 percent of 12th-graders reported past-month cigarette use.

By now, we all know that smoking has negative health effects. These include lung and heart disease and particularly cancer—since cigarettes contain chemicals that are carcinogenic, or cancer-causing. However, when it comes to quitting, the main problem is nicotine. Nicotine is addictive and makes quitting notoriously hard.

To help teens quit, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) recently launched SmokefreeTXT, a free text-to-quit service that sends text messages with encouragement, advice, and tips directly to teens’ cell phones.

How It Works

Sign up at www.teen.smokefree.gov or text “QUIT” to “iQUIT” (47848) and provide the date you smoked last. After that, you’ll receive text messages for up to 6 weeks. Research shows that support for quitting continues to be important beyond the first few weeks.

Smokefree Teen

The text-to-quit campaign is just one feature of a broader effort to encourage teens to quit smoking. NCI’s new Smokefree Teen Web site features information, quizzes, comics, and other resources to help teens understand the decisions they make and to take control of their health.

Smokefree Teen also offers a free smartphone app, QuitSTART—an interactive guide that provides mood management tips, tracks cravings, and monitors quit attempts.

You can find Smokefree Teen on several social media pages to connect other teens with tools to help them quit. Think about “liking” Smokefree Teen on Facebook, even if you don’t smoke, to show support for your friends or family who are trying to quit.

Is 2012 the year of texting for healthy living? Let us know if you think campaigns like these can help you stay committed to your resolutions.

Most people are familiar with taking prescription medications like antibiotics when they get sick. Some people also are prescribed medication to help with a problem like depression or ADHD.

Did you know that some (not all) drug addictions actually can be treated with prescription medications, too? It may seem odd that someone addicted to a drug like heroin would start taking another drug so they can stop using heroin. But, research shows that some people respond very well to what is called “medication-assisted treatment.”

Why Does Medication Help?

If a person is addicted to an opioid (like heroin or prescription pain relievers), medication can help him or her get back to a better state of mind—beyond just thinking about seeking and using the drug. It also can help ease withdrawal and cravings, which can give a person who is addicted the chance to focus on changes needed to recover.

Taking medication for opioid addiction is like taking medication to control heart disease or diabetes. It is not the same as substituting one addictive drug for another. Used properly, the medication does not create a new addiction.

How Does Medication Work?

Medications to treat opioid addiction (like methadone and buprenorphine) affect the same brain areas as the drugs of abuse they are opposing (like heroin and OxyContin)—but in different ways. Anti-addiction medications “trick” the brain into thinking it is still getting the drug, which stops withdrawal. They help the person feel normal, not high, and reduce drug cravings.

Alcohol dependence also may be treated with medication. Three oral medications and one that is injected have been shown to help patients reduce drinking, avoid relapse to heavy drinking, or stop drinking altogether.

Of course, these medications aren’t available over the counter at your local pharmacy. They are dispensed at treatment centers or by primary care doctors approved to prescribe them.

Medication isn’t the only treatment for opioid or alcohol dependence—adding counseling or therapy can help, and the support of family and friends is often crucial to a person’s success. See NIDA’s new treatment resource, Seeking Drug Abuse Treatment: Know What To Ask.

To learn more about medication-assisted treatment for opioid addiction, read the brochure, Medication-Assisted Treatment for Opioid Addiction: Facts for Families and Friends.

Since the death of Michael Jackson in 2009, “propofol” has been mentioned often in the news.  The substance was found to be the cause of his death and was the center of the highly publicized trial of his doctor.

So, it’s no surprise there is a lot of curiosity about propofol.   NIDA received questions about it during last year’s Drug Facts Chat Day.

During Chat Day, Cam from California asked about the basics—

Is propofol a drug?

Yes.  Propofol is a common type of anesthetic—a drug that doctors use to “put people to sleep” for surgery. It is given to patients through an “intravenous drip,” (called an “IV” for short) that goes through a special needle into a patient’s vein, so the medicine goes directly into the bloodstream.

Doctors who give patients propofol are generally known as “anesthesiologists” and have special training. These experts set up the IV, make sure the patient is “sleeping” comfortably, and then carefully monitor vital signs (like heart rate, breathing, etc.) while the patient has surgery.

Doctors like using propofol because it leaves the body very quickly, which allows the patient to wake up after surgery more rapidly, without bad side effects.  Propofol can be a useful drug when it’s given by people who are properly trained. But like many prescription drugs, it can be very harmful if used inappropriately.  Propofol should be given only in a hospital setting where the patient can be closely monitored.

A Lost Legend

Michael Jackson died of acute propofol intoxication.  Additional drugs found in Michael’s system were the depressants midazolam and diazepam, the painkiller Lidocaine, and the stimulant ephedrine.  His doctor, Conrad Murray, was convicted of causing the singer’s death by giving Michael the propofol that caused him to stop breathing.   By helping Michael abuse drugs—even if it was to “help him sleep”—he contributed to the loss of a legend.  Michael’s untimely death was mourned by millions of people.

More people understand now the harmful effects that smoking has on the body as well as the addictive effects of nicotine. The good news is that teens seem to be getting the message—SBB recently reported that smoking rates among 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-graders are at an all-time low.

But many teens are still smoking—according to the 2011 Monitoring the Future Study, 19 percent of high school seniors reported smoking in the past month.

New NIDA research gives yet another reason for teens to avoid lighting that first cigarette—nicotine may “prime” the brain to enhance cocaine’s effects, making it a very dangerous “gateway drug.” That means it could open the door to other drug use.

Science Suggests that Nicotine Changes the Brain

Evidence shows that most people who tried drugs like cocaine were first  tobacco or alcohol users. This concept of “gateway drugs” has been controversial, mostly because people question whether prior use of drugs like nicotine, alcohol, or marijuana actually leads to later drug use. Before now, studies have not been able to show a biological reason why smoking or other nicotine use could increase a person’s chances of using illegal street drugs.

That changed when NIDA researchers found that mice exposed to nicotine in their drinking water for at least 7 days showed an increased response to cocaine.

Why did this happen? Researchers recognized that nicotine actually changes the structure of your DNA, it reprograms how certain genes are expressed—in particular a gene that has been related to addiction—and ultimately, it enhances the response to cocaine.

Moving on from mice, researchers looked at statistics in humans—in particular at when people began nicotine use and their degree of cocaine dependence: Among cocaine users who smoked cigarettes before starting cocaine, the rate of cocaine dependence was higher compared with  those who tried cocaine first (before smoking cigarettes).

The study doesn’t mean that every person who smokes cigarettes will eventually become addicted to cocaine. But it does suggest that if a person who smokes cigarettes tries cocaine, their brains may have been changed by nicotine to make it more likely that they will become addicted to cocaine.

Need help quitting smoking? Take a look at these resources from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Why do adults seem to blame “raging hormones” for many things teens do? Beyond causing acne and a sudden interest in dating, are hormones responsible for changes in behavior or emotional response?

The answer is yes. The hormones that change around puberty—starting between age 8 and 14—and last until the early 20s when adolescence ends may affect you in more ways than you realize.

NIDA defines a “hormone” as “a chemical substance formed in glands in the body and carried in the blood to organs and tissues, where it influences function, structure, and behavior.”

In preteen and teen years, many new chemicals move around inside your body, transforming you from a child to a teen to an adult.

Growing on the Outside: What’s Happening on the Inside?

During puberty, your brain releases various hormones that help your body to mature by producing testosterone (in boys) and estrogen (in girls).  Resulting changes can go beyond physical development to include emotional and mood changes—although some researchers think mood swings may relate more to changes in the teen brain than to hormonal spurts.

Other important hormones also come into play in the teen years. Melatonin is a hormone that helps your body regulate sleep cycles by making you feel sleepy after the sun goes down. Melatonin levels in adolescents don’t start to rise until about 10:30 p.m., which might explain why many teens want to stay up late despite their parents’ wishes. Research shows that for adolescents, melatonin levels remain high, even after they wake up, which is why teens may feel sleepy in the morning.

Our bodies also release something called “stress hormones,” such as cortisol.  The stress hormone cortisol governs how well someone responds to or recovers from stressful experiences. Increased stresses in adolescence can cause cortisol levels to rise, which can affect teens’ ability to function calmly and reasonably.

So, while teen bodies are a bundle of changes, the good news is that eventually your body adjusts, and the “raging” hormones calm down as you move into adulthood.

In October 2011, the coroner who conducted Amy Winehouse’s autopsy declared that the Grammy-winning singer “died by misadventure.” Translation: Amy died of accidental alcohol poisoning.

Amy famously battled an addiction to drugs and alcohol, and had returned to rehab only months before her death. She gave up drugs after receiving treatment in 2008 but had trouble staying away from alcohol—in fact, Amy had just resumed drinking a few days before her death after 3 weeks of abstinence from it. Sadly, she drank a lethal amount of alcohol—nearly five times the British drunk-driving limit.

What Is Alcohol Poisoning?

Alcohol poisoning is when a person has extremely high levels of toxic alcohol in his or her system.

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the liver converts toxic alcohol—from beer, wine, or hard liquor—to nontoxic energy at a rate of approximately one drink per hour, depending on factors like gender, size, age, medical conditions (e.g., heart disease), and whether other drugs were used in addition to alcohol.

Rapid consumption of a lot of alcohol can overload the liver’s ability to keep up, causing the blood alcohol concentration to rise rapidly. High blood alcohol concentration can lead to slurred speech and lack of muscle coordination. It also “numbs” the part of the brain that controls the heart and lungs, which can lead to coma or death.

How Many People Die From Accidental Alcohol Poisoning?

It’s actually pretty rare to die from alcohol poisoning alone—about one in a million people. What’s more common is for people to die from combining alcohol and other drugs, which can lead to dangerous medical issues, suicide or self-injury, accidental drowning, or car accidents.

Usually when we say someone is “one in a million,” it means that they’re special and talented in a way most people dream of. Amy Winehouse was certainly special and talented for writing and performing her music. Unfortunately, at age 27, Amy Winehouse was also an unlucky “one in a million.” Rest in peace, Amy.