LinkBlog
Most People are Optimists - Except for Lawyers
The Army's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (PTSD/MTBI) Chain Teaching Program
Cannabis, the mind and society: the hash realities (PDF - free reg. req'd)
The Role of Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies in the Treatment of Insomnia
recommended links
Depression Is Real Coalition
-
ABIL: Agoraphobics Building
Independant Lives -
Agoraphobia and Panic
Disorder Foundation -
Anxiety Disorders Association
of America - Anxiety Network Australia
- Anxiety-Panic.Com
- AnxietyZone
- Army Behavioral Health
- BrainPhysics - OCD
-
Canadian Network for Mood
and Anxiety Treatments - Children of Hoarders
- Choices in Mental Health (UK)
-
Dart Foundation: Gateway to PTSD
information -
David Baldwin's
Trauma Information Pages - EMDR Institute, Inc.
- EMDR Network Japan
- Fear of Flying course (free)
- Healthy Minds
- Information for People with Anxiety Disorders
- Internet Guide to REBT, CBT
- Living with a Brain Disorder
- Morita Therapy
- Mayo Clinic : Depression
- Mayo Clinic : GAD
- Mayo Clinic : OCD
- Mayo Clinic : Panic Attacks
- Mayo Clinic : PTSD
- Mayo Clinic : Social Anxiety
-
Medicines.org.uk - Anxiety &
Depression guides - Mind-Your-Mind Canada
- National Center for PTSD
-
National Institute of Mental
Health (NIMH) - No Such Thing As Crazy
- OCD Action, UK
- OCD Ireland
- Obsessive Compulsive Foundation
- Open Minds, Open Doors
- Out of the silence - site for young people with mental illness
- Paniccure.com
- Partners With PTSD
- Prescription Drug Information
- Psychiatric Service Dog Society
- PsychNews
-
Rational Emotive Behavior
Therapy (REBT) - Sane Australia
-
Shyness & Social Anxiety
Service of Australia -
Social Phobia/Social Anxiety
Association - Social Anxiety Support board
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South African Depression &
Anxiety Group - Suicide Prevention Help
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tAPir - the Anxiety Panic
internet resource -
The Panic Center (Free
CBT based programs) - The School of OCD
- UN-WHO Drug Trials Database
- U.S. Army Behavioral Health - PTSD
we support
"just don't smoke"
"Don't smoke, whatever you do, just don't smoke."
Yul Brynner
Yul Brynner
- Menthol cigarettes harder to quit
- Secondhand smoke in cars serious threat to kid's health
- Starting smoking young increases addiction risk
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Smoking doesn't slim girls;
stunts boys' growth - 40 reasons why you should quit smoking
- Pregnant smokers 'prime' their kids to smoke
- Smoking related coronary artery disease quickly reversed if young smokers quit
- Not ready to quit? Try cutting back
- Half smoking again within year of lung cancer surgery
- Cutting back 'compensation' increases toxin load per cigarette
- Tobacco companies upped nicotine level 11% since 1998
- Workplace passive smoke increases lung cancer risk
- Hooked by genes: The DNA sequences cigarette companies love
- Smoking causes long lasting changes to brain's bio chemistry
- Nicotine receptor stimulant trebles the odds of stopping smoking
- Bupropion, nortriptyline double chances of quitting
- Nicotine's powerful role in reinforcing smoking
- Pregnant smokers raise child's risk of stroke, heart attack
- Smoking linked to pancreatic cancer
- Neurobiology of Smokers' Cravings
- 'Low cancer risk' cigarettes as deadly as regular kind
- Quitting reduces lung cancer death risk by 70%
- Fetal nicotine exposure linked to teen attention problems
- Outdoor second-hand smoke exposure can harm
- Response to day's first cigarette predicts ease of quitting
- 'Healthy' children of smoking parents aren't really so healthy
- Children of smokers have up to five times higher levels of a nicotine toxin
- Smoking increases risk of dementia
- Smoking kills even after quitting
- Antenatal second hand smoke exposure increases child's psychological problems
- Smoking could kill 1 billion this century: WHO
- Just 1 cigarette can lead to nicotine addiction
- Smokers less likely to survive early stage lung cancer
- Smokeless tobacco delivers carcinogens more efficiently than cigarettes!
- Smoking permanently turns on genes that increase lung cancer susceptibility
- Secondhand smoke a health hazard for pets too
- Hypnosis for smoking cessation sees strong results
- Smoking doesn't burn fat
- Smoking linked to sagging breasts
- No evidence waterpipes decrease smoking harm
anti torture campaign
- Torture experts write APA policy
- [APA] still rocked by torture debate
- Petition for psychologists
- AMA president says APA "did not accurately represent our ethical guidelines"
- Psychologists Aiding Torturers
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Annual conference endorses
APA's torture policy :( - Physicians for Human Rights call on Congress to vote No on Military Commissions Bill
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Torture is a Form of Trauma;
Trauma Causes PTSD - Psychoanalysts' association condemns torture use
- Humiliating, inhumane or degrading treatment IS torture
- Two American psychologists accused of war crimes. U.S. DoD investigating.
- DoD report proves psychologists central to POW/detainee abuse (pdf)
- 40 psychologists demand APA change policy on torture (pdf)
- Did the American Psychological Association turn a blind eye to torture for medicine precribing rights?
- Will psychologists still abet torture?
- Psychologist, Author Mary Pipher Returns APA Award Over Interrogation Policy
- Guantanamo Medical Role Likened to South Africa Under Apartheid
Deputy Army Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Lt. General John (Jeff) Kimmons, has stated that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through abusive interrogation methods in the last 5 years.
monument, Monmouth County
New Jersey.
Cannabinoid receptor antagonists increase quit smoking success rate, lessen weight gain
posted Thursday, 2 August 2007
Using selective cannabinoid 1 (CB1) receptor antagonists such as rimonabant (Acomplia® at a dose of 20 mg per day can help people quit smoking, can help them to remain abstinent, and can help prevent the weight gain that so often accompanies attempts at stopping smoking. The lower dose of 5mg, however, was not shown to be effective, according to a Cochrane Systematic Review.
Smoking tobacco sends nicotine into the blood stream, and this chemical disrupts the endocannabinoid system, part of the hormonal control mechanism in the brain that controls energy balance and food intake. Over time the body alters the nature of its energy mechanism to compensate for this effect. Stopping smoking removes the nicotine and once again disturbs the mechanism, adding to the withdrawal symptoms and leaving a person prone to put on weight.
One potential way of preventing this is to take a drug that blocks the receptor that is involved in nicotine's action in the brain - the cannabinoid 1 receptor. These CB1 receptor antagonists could therefore form part of a therapeutic program aimed at helping individuals quit smoking, although this drug has not yet been approved as a smoking cessation treatment in the USA or in Europe.
To see whether there was evidence that these receptor antagonists work two Cochrane Researchers, Kate Cahill who works at the Department of Primary Care in the University of Oxford and Michael Ussher of St George's, University of London, searched the published and unpublished literature for relevant research projects. They found three trials that involved a total of 1567 smokers and 1661 people who had recently quit smoking. Analysing the data showed that the effect of the drug depended on the dose used:- People given 20 mg rimonabant increased by 50% their odds of remaining abstinent compared with those on placebo. Smokers who had quit while using 20mg rimonabant increased by 50% their odds of staying abstinent if they continued taking either 5mg or 20mg rimonabant, compared with those who moved to placebo treatment after quitting.
- People who wanted to quit appeared to gain no benefit from 5 mg rimonabant treatment. Furthermore the people who did manage to quit using this lower dose were equally likely to remain abstinent whether they continued with rimonabant treatment or moved to a placebo.
- Weight gain appeared to be significantly lower in people who quit while using 20 mg rimonabant than those taking either 5 mg rimonabant or placebo. The differences in weight between the groups appeared to be maintained through longest follow-up. This beneficial effect was more evident in overweight or obese smokers than in those of normal weight.
"From the preliminary data that we found it appears that 20mg rimonabant may significantly increase a person's likelihood of quitting and may also reduce the amount of weight that they gain," says Cahill.
Cahill K, Ussher M. Cannabinoid type 1 receptor antagonists (rimonabant) for smoking cessation Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2007 Jul 18;(3):CD005353 [Full review]
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