Role of Intravenous N-acetylcysteine for Addiction Therapy

Drug addiction is a vice that many people are fighting with today. In fact the world’s economy has been seriously affected by drug addiction due to the huge amounts of money that many governments and organizations spend in rehabs to help those who are fighting addiction. Addiction recovery has never been an easy procedure. It takes time and resources and most importantly the input of the addict matters a lot. Doctors have been involved in research in the past to try and come up with better ways of help addiction patients through addiction recovery. However, in most cases addicts are treated by using medication detoxification drugs which are chemically similar to the chemical being removed from the body. The patient is given this substance to manage the severity of withdrawal symptoms.

In most cases the substitutes for the chemical used is either Librium or Valium. These drugs are used because they can calm the nervous system. When using these drugs the dose is gradually reduced as symptoms subside. The drugs however do have a half-life for several days after the course is completed. During this process the patient can still experience severe discomfort with tremors, nausea, vomiting, and occasionally even delirium tremens (DTs). These are just some of the disadvantages of using advent pharmaceuticals in fighting addiction in patients besides medical detoxification in drug addiction patients take longer than the IV N-acetylcysteine therapy because the addicted person has also to withdraw from the substitute drug. The fight against addiction from a substance may get complicated when the patient become dependent on the substitute drug.

Intravenous N-acetylcysteine

What is NAC?

NAC or N-acetylcysteine is an acetylized version of the natural amino-acid cysteine that is a precursor to Glutamate, which affects the Glutamate system and is responsible for learning, memory, motivation and cognition. Though still unknown to many patients as an effective medicine in treatment of addicts, N-acetylcysteine has been used by many doctors in treatment of various diseases. This may be because it has psychiatric effects on the glutamate, dopamine and NMDA brain systems.

Effects of NAC on glutamate system

NAC is the most sought after type of Cysteine. N-acetylcysteine works in various ways to help in treating addiction, thanks to its effects on the glutamate system. When the level of N-acetylcysteine is altered it will not only have an effect on oxidative balance but will also modulate neuro-transmitter pathways, including glutamate and dopamine. NAC assists in the regulation of neuronal intra- and extracellular exchange of glutamate through the cysteine–glutamate antiporter. Whereas this antiporter is abundant throughout all cell types, in the brain it is preferentially located on glial cells. The dimer, cysteine, is taken up by astrocytes and exchanged for glutamate, which is released into the extracellular space. This free glutamate appears to stimulate inhibitory metabotropic glutamate receptors on glutamatergic nerve terminals and thereby reduce the synaptic release of glutamate. Given that relation, the amount of N-acetylcysteine in the system as well as the feedback via glutathione (GSH) production by neurons may directly regulate the amount of glutamate present in the extracellular space. Furthermore, GSH itself has been shown to potentiate brain N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor response to glutamate in rats. Changes in the levels of neuronal GSH may not only alter available glutamate levels, but also have direct consequences on glutamatergic function.

Research study on effectiveness of NAC in treatment of addiction

Intravenous N-acetylcysteine A research study done by Steven D. LaRowe, PhD, Pascale Mardikian, MD, Robert Malcolm, MD, Hugh Myrick, MD, Peter Kalivas, PhD, Krista McFarland, PhD, Michael Saladin, PhD, Aimee McRae, PharmD, and Kathleen Brady to investigate the Safety and Tolerability of N-Acetylcysteine in Cocaine-Dependent Individuals, It was found that N-acetylcysteine (NAC) was safe and well tolerated in thirteen non-treatment-seeking cocaine-dependent adults. The report also showed that the side effects were rather mild. Despite the mild side effects of N-acetylcysteine, it’s effective in treatment of addiction as these mild side effects shown by those patients who were put on NAC therapy did not differ significantly with the side effects that were exhibited by the patients who were on placebo.

For this study; six males and seven females aged between 23 and 45 were used. Of the 13 participants, nine were of African-American origin while four were Caucasian, who met DSM-IV criteria for cocaine dependence but were non-treatment seeking. Of those subjects, eight were primarily crack smokers; two primarily used nasal powder, while the remaining subjects used a mixture of crack, powder, and freebase cocaine. Self-report accounts of cocaine use for the ninety days prior to study participation indicated that subjects used forty out of the ninety days on average or about 44% of the time, spending a daily average of $30 on the drugs. Subjects were recruited flyers, newspaper ads, and word-of-mouth. These research findings pointed out at the effectiveness of N-acetylcysteine in addiction treatment. This study however was done on a smaller scope but its results may lay a great foundation for further research studies that might be done on this subject.

Finally, Drug Addiction is a vice that should be fought by all means that is why we at AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center are committed to availing help to addicts and offering them a place to call home. It does not matter what kind of addiction you are wrestling with right now, just call on Dr. Dalal Akoury (MD) today and begin your journey to victory against addiction.

Role of Intravenous N-acetylcysteine for Addiction Therapy

Kidney Health and Blood Sugar

November 30, 2014

Kidney Health and Blood Sugar

The connection between hypertension and blood glucose is even more insidious than it seems. When you think of hypertension the organs that come into your mind are probably the kidney, then the heart. The kidney refused to regulate the amount of blood sugar. A lot of it got deposited on the walls of blood tissue resulting in some unregulated pressure for this life fluid.

Hypertension often accompanies diabetes in the event of chronic hyperglycemia. Clearly then, the relationship between elevated blood glucose, hyperinsulinemia and kidney health is a complicated one. You probably understand how crucial the kidneys are in maintaining the balance in the body system. The organ plays an essential regulatory role in creating the body’s equilibrium through osmoregulation.

With diabetes, the kidneys are at risk. Yes they often help in releasing of glucose into the blood circulation via a process known as gluconeogenesis, lead the uptake of glucose from the circulation to satisfy the body’s energy needs, and then help reabsorb blood sugar at the point of the proximal tubule. But diabetes can often cause this vital osmoregulatory system to break down.

This happens when the high levels of blood sugar damages the kidneys rendering them dysfunctional. When the kidneys fail they are not able to filter out waste from the blood any more. This may often lead to kidney disease (nephropathy) with time.

Kidney-Health

Where does the sugar come from?

The diet! Organ failure. Related disorders. Genetics. Lifestyle choices such as exercise and lack of it. All these factors bring the excess sugar into your blood. Any of these factors may be responsible for a diabetic condition. This path is however a long one. One does not simply wake up one morning and have diabetes.

Of all these factors, the diet is the major root cause of diabetes. Statistics show that the contemporary world populations take a lot of sugar in their diet. Try to imagine how much soda you take in a week, how much peanut butter you consume, yoghurt, crackers, ketchup…and the list may go on and on.

America alone was last estimated to have its population consume 156 pounds of sugar every year each person. Among these ponds of sugar consumed, soft drinks alone was found to take up 33 percent of the total sugar intake.

Depending with which type of diabetes is in question, the causes are different. Diabetes type 1, for instance is caused by the presence of insufficient insulin in the victim’s body. This involves a condition where for some reason the pancreas failed to produce insulin. Most likely this is caused by some hereditary condition. It may be a case of autoimmunity.

Insulin resistance on the other hand results into the diabetes type 2. This takes time. You take that sugar of yours over time. You are warned about it. Even the doctor tries to prescribe for you a healthier alternative but you remain adamant on the soda and ice-cream routine. So as time goes by, you develop an addiction to sugar. You sometimes see the syndromes coming but you just cannot quit the wrong path.

What happens in the end is the presence of too much sugar in your blood that the organs responsible for its regulation can no longer control it for you. Your kidneys’ nephrons get overworked by having to filter too much blood due to the presence of excess glucose in the bloodstream. So with time, this added work exerts a lot of pressure on these kidney tubules forcing them to lose that filtering ability. As a result, no reabsorption of glucose takes place at the proximal tubule resulting in a very high blood sugar level.

The endocrine mechanism

This blood sugar regulation process involves a complex system of hormone balance. Insulin and Glucagon are the two major hormones involved here. In fact diabetes can more accurately be viewed not as a sugar disease, but rather an insulin disorder. Insulin is responsible for promoting the absorption of glucose from the blood to skeletal muscles and fat tissue. The hormone also causes the fat to be stored in that form instead of being hydrolyzed for energy production. This way hormone insulin regulates the metabolism of carbohydrates and fats.

Insulin is a peptide hormone made by the pancreatic beta cells. It allows the body therefore to use sugar/glucose contained in carbohydrates in the diet to synthesize energy. Alternatively it helps to store glucose for future use in inert form. As such, Insulin helps keep the blood sugar levels from getting too high, a condition referred to as hyperglycemia, or low; a condition known as hypoglycemia.

Diabetes-Awareness Blood sugar is root-controlled by 3 major organs; pancreas, liver and the adrenal glands, given the fact that adrenaline, thyroxin and cortisol are also involved.

Hypoglycemic conditions stimulate the adrenals and the liver to produce a counter effect with the help of their respective hormones. The adrenal glands increase the production of hormone cortisol which prompts the liver to raise blood sugar levels. In this process of trying to arrest the situation, the increased cortisol eventually leads to weight gain by cortisol mobilizing fat in the body. This causes the fat to settle in the abdomen making it fatter.

Problems posed by the sugar

With the increased sugar levels, diabetes is not the only adversary you are facing. There is more than just the diabetes. Rather, you are faced with an increased cardiovascular disease, obesity, nutrient deficiencies including a reduced level of the essential B vitamins. Dysfunctions related to blood sugar dysregulation are also common. You may also encounter strokes, metabolic syndrome, oxidative stress and a possible adrenal or pancreatic dysfunction.

Physical signs for the blood sugar issue?

Rising blood pressure may be a sign of a cardiovascular problem. You may also experience adult acne, slow healing of wounds, white patches on inside of your cheek, cataracts and sometimes chronic bladder infections.

The good news is that there is a relatively simple way of improving all these conditions at the same time. AwareMed recommends that you follow a reduced-carbohydrate diet that includes plenty of fresh, potassium-rich vegetables, low-glycemic fruits and healthy fats—the latter of which have virtually no effect on glucose and insulin levels.