Word: endorphins
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...Fields and Oral Surgeon Newton C. Gordon, all of the University of California in San Francisco, may have hit upon an answer. In an experiment involving dental patients having molars extracted, they gave them either a placebo or the drug naloxone, which is known to block the effects of endorphin, a morphine-like pain reliever produced by the brain itself...
...that is so, people who anesthetize themselves with booze or pot may be trying to achieve unnaturally what endorphins do naturally. Still, since individual body chemistries vary, the endorphin theory might account for the fact that some people are habitually happier than others: some might just have a bigger supply of this natural analgesic. It may even suggest, moreover, one concrete way in which human beings might assure their sense of happiness; yet this way-the ingestion of synthetic endorphins-is unnervingly like the drug-popping route to happiness envisioned in Brave New World. In all this, alas, nothing much...
Ervin and Palmour emphasize that they have no firm proof that the molecule, which they have dubbed leu-endorphin, is the cause of-or even related to-schizophrenia. But if it is, its removal offers possible treatment for the illness, which accounts for nearly 20% of the mental patients in U.S. hospitals...