Word: heroinism
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...prescription-drug use in Florida rose from 2,780 in 2006 to 3,317 in 2007, and then to 3,750 in 2008. The last figure is equivalent to about 10 reported deaths a day. That's more than the number of fatalities from street drugs like cocaine and heroin. It doesn't help that in Florida, you don't need to be a doctor to run a pain-management clinic, Lamberti says. "You need a background check to get a liquor license - you can't be a convicted felon and open...
...funny thing is that the same headlines are still making news - except written in reverse. On March 29, the New York Daily News declared: "Fatty foods may be just as addictive as heroin and cocaine: study." Indeed, a look at Americans' collectively expanding waistline - with two-thirds of adults qualifying as overweight or obese - would suggest that the Scientific American article may have actually understated the addictiveness of junk food, not cocaine. Some addiction researchers might even argue that potato chips - and other high-fat, high-calorie foods - are more effective than a crack pipe in terms of keeping "users...
...rats gained more weight. "It was quite profound," says study author Paul Kenny, an associate professor of neuroscience at the Scripps Research Institute. The reward-response effects seen in the fatty-food-eating mice were "very similar to what we see with animals that use cocaine and heroin," he says...
Kenny's study did not include rats exposed to drugs, making direct comparison tricky, but other studies have found that chronic cocaine or heroin exposure leads to reductions in reward thresholds of 40% to 50%. (See nine kid foods to avoid...
...extended-access rats also showed a lowered level of a certain type of dopamine receptor in the brain, which is thought to contribute to pleasure-seeking behavior in humans. "Human cocaine addicts, people who are obese, alcoholics and heroin addicts also show a down-regulation of this dopamine D2 receptor," says David Shertleff, director of the division of basic neuroscience and behavioral research at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "This system is geared toward motivating behavior normally, but what's happening here is, with chronic exposure to highly fatty and sweet manufactured food, you're actually getting...