Biomedical subjects
J C Negrete
Publications and source records attributed to J C Negrete.
The World Health Organization's Expert Committee on drug dependence: comments on the 28th report (1994)
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Do role-model societies exist?
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Family history of alcoholism and the mediation of alcohol intake by catalase: further evidence for catalase as a marker of the propensity to ingest alcohol.
Earlier studies have suggested that catalase activity (CA) may represent a biological marker of alcohol intake in animals and in humans. An initial study was designed to rule out the possibility that CA is induced as a function of acute alcohol intake. Subjects (n = 80) were presented with either an alcohol (0.5 g/kg of body weight) or control solution, and asked to provide four 100-microliters blood samples at 0.0, 0.5, 2.0, and 24.0 hr. Results showed no differences in CA between individuals who had received alcohol, and controls, even when the effects of previous drinking history were covaried out. This lack of effect of acute alcohol intake on the possible induction of CA further supported the notion that CA may be a viable marker of alcohol intake, rather than the converse. In the second study, the relation between CA and alcohol intake was investigated in individuals with a family history (FH) of alcoholism (FH+), and in those without a family history of alcoholism (FH-). Subjects (n = 607) completed the Michigan Alcoholism Screening Questionnaire, the MacAndrew Scale, and the Concordia University Alcohol Screening Questionnaire; answered questions concerning their FH for alcoholism; and provided a 100-microliters blood sample. Results showed that FH+ individuals had higher mean CA compared with FH- individuals. When individuals with FH+ were compared with those with FH-, differences in the pattern of relation between CA and alcohol intake were observed. Although a significant relation between CA and alcohol intake was obtained for both FH- and FH+ individuals, this relation was significantly higher (p < 0.001) for individuals with FH+.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Cocaine problems in the coca-growing countries of South America.
The problems of cocaine present a rather particular profile in the Central Andes region from which this drug originates. On the one hand there is a relatively harmless pattern of use (coca leaf chewing) in the countries concerned which minimizes the drug's most hazardous properties. On the other hand the region suffers from some of the most severe cocaine-related problems to be observed anywhere: (a) easy access to the newer, highly toxic preparations of the drug (such as coca paste) and a rapid growth in the number of new users; (b) the abandonment of certain traditional and essential agricultural activities in favour of the more profitable coca leaf production; (c) the severe ecological damage being caused in the coca growing areas; and (d) the establishment of a powerful coca trade economy which is subverting the very fabric of society and is creating corruption, lawless violence and political anarchy.
Cue-evoked arousal in cocaine users: a study of variance and predictive value.
Thirty-six cocaine abusers in treatment and 16 non-using controls were exposed to visual cocaine cues; measurements included changes in skin conductance and a rating of psychological arousal (persisting cocaine thoughts and images during the 24 h following the experiment). The GSI score of the HSCL-58 was used as an indicator of psychological distress. Probands showed arousal responses significantly higher than the controls. Skin conductance readings correlated positively with HSCL-58 scores and with severity of craving in the week prior to the trial. Unexpectedly, they correlated negatively with duration of cocaine use and did not vary as a function of the severity of cocaine addiction or the duration of cocaine abstinence prior to the test. Neither cocaine addiction measurements nor arousal responses were found to predict cessation of use (a minimum of 3 months of sustained abstinence) 1 year after the test.
The role of medical schools in the prevention of alcohol-related problems.
There is agreement that physicians can play a major role in the prevention of alcohol problems among their patients and that medical schools should prepare physicians for this role by teaching three major subject areas: knowledge, attitudes and clinical skills. Despite this agreement and the acknowledged high prevalence of alcohol problems in clinical populations, medical school coverage of these problems is not proportional to their importance. Barriers to adequate coverage of alcohol problems are traditional attitudes, confusion as to whether such problems are "medical" and lack of adequate faculty role models. These problems could be remedied by encouragement and training of interested faculty members, establishment of substance abuse centres in university medical schools, integration of alcohol-related material with relevant topics in all departments and inclusion of alcohol-related questions on medical qualifying exams.
Political implications of scientific research in the field of drug abuse: the case of cannabis.
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Screening for alcoholism among alcohol users in a traditional Arab Muslim society.
The Short Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (S-MAST) was applied to 140 alcohol users in the traditional Muslim society of Kuwait. One hundred were confirmed alcoholics and 40 were self-disclosed social drinkers in the community. The questionnaire significantly discriminated between the groups. Its sensitivity level was 100% and its specificity 82.5%. Although all except one of the S-MAST items elicited significant differences between the groups in question, it appears that the particular sociocultural conditions of the setting may influence the validity of some of them.
The social complications of chronic alcohol abuse: relative influence of family history and severity of alcohol dependence.
Alcoholics with a family history of the disease are said to present more severe consequences than alcoholics without such a history. This study examined the frequency distribution of severe alcohol dependence and police arrests for public drunkenness across samples of alcoholics with (n = 77) and without (n = 37) a family history of alcoholism. Both the percentage of subjects presenting severe dependence and the history of police arrests were greater in the positive family history group, but these differences did not reach conventional levels of statistical significance. However, results of logistic regression analyses demonstrate that male sex, younger age and, above all, severity of alcohol dependence, are better correlates of the occurrence of police arrests than is the subject's family history of alcoholism. The picture presented by this sample of outpatient alcoholics appears to qualify some currently held assumptions of the influence of family history on the phenomenology of alcoholism.
What's happened to the cannabis debate?
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Cannabis affects the severity of schizophrenic symptoms: results of a clinical survey.
Data on the history of cannabis use and a spot urine test for cannabinoids were obtained for 137 schizophrenics in treatment. Subjects who were using cannabis during the 6-month observation period presented with a significantly higher degree of delusional and hallucinatory activity than those who did not. Moreover, the group using cannabis made a higher average number of visits to the hospital during the same period. The status of cannabis use appeared to contribute to such variance more than did other relevant factors (age, stage of the illness, amount of medication prescribed, occasional use of other psychoactive substances).
The effects of cannabis use on the clinical condition of schizophrenics.
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Speech processing ability in alcoholics: a transient impairment and its relation to field dependence.
Alcoholic and non-alcoholic subjects received a test of the ability to identify speech presented against competing speech (Synthetic Sentence Identification) and a test of field dependence (Embedded-Figures Test (EFT). Performance on the speech task (which involved auditory figure-ground differentiation) bore no special relationship to performance on the field-dependence test. However, cross-sectional and longitudinal data suggested that recently-drinking alcoholics are temporarily impaired in their speech-processing ability, recovering this ability after several months of alcohol-abstinence. A relationship between chronicity of alcoholism and field dependence was also observed. The latter relationship, along with findings on auditory tests, were discussed in terms of their relevance to the issue of whether field dependence is an antecedent to or a consequence of alcoholism.
The haemolysis resistance test (HRT) in chronic excessive drinkers: a pilot study.
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Field dependence in alcoholics: relation to years of drinking, severity of alcohol dependence and emotional distress.
A number of factors were evaluated as predictors of field dependence (Embedded-Figures Test score) in alcoholics. In our sample, duration of excessive drinking and symptomatology of alcohol dependence were significantly related to the level of field dependence. These results fail to corroborate earlier findings and suggest that heightened field dependence in alcoholics is, at least partly, a consequence of alcohol misuse. In addition, a strong relationship was detected between the alcoholics' degree of anxiety and their degree of alcohol dependence. Possible bases for such a relationship are discussed.
[Effect of cannabis use on health].
Impairment in short-term memory and lingering deficit in psychomotor performance are but two of the acute cannabis intoxication components that may have long-term consequences. The former because it affects learning and the latter because it interferes with proper handling of motor vehicles. The most frequently observed complication of cannabis inebriation, however, is a short-lasting acute psychological disturbance with symptoms of panic, paranoid apprehension and personality disorganization. This type of reaction is often not dose-related, and could appropriately be termed "pathological intoxication". In addition to the acute effects of cannabis on mental performance and behaviour, this paper reviews the psychiatric consequences of chronic use and the accumulated evidence on organic toxicity associated with it: residual cognitive deficit, lethargic symptoms, cannabis psychosis, respiratory, gastro-intestinal and cardiovascular complications, as well as effects on immune response and gonadal functions, are discussed. Also included are reviews on the pharmacology and therapeutic potential of cannabinoids.