Word: leshner
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...other chronic diseases. Close to half of recovering addicts fail to maintain complete abstinence after a year--about the same proportion of patients with diabetes and hypertension who fail to comply with their diet, exercise and medication regimens. What doctors who treat drug abuse should strive for, says Alan Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, is not necessarily a cure but long-term care that controls the progress of the disease and alleviates its worst symptoms. "The occasional relapse is normal," he says, "and just an indication that more treatment is needed...
There may be an even more dangerous synergy at work, according to Alan Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "Every substance that is addicting leads to an increase in dopamine levels in the brain," he says. That may help explain why people who abuse one substance so often abuse another. Fowler likens the effect to creating a biochemical pathway or channel: "A drug may leave an imprint in the brain, so that the next drug becomes more pleasurable than it would otherwise." In short, the brain gets into a rut that just grows deeper and deeper...