Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0011570 (depression)
 172,036 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The limitation of the methadone maintenance program has pressed for a re-evaluation of our understanding of the underlying causes of addiction. Apparently, one of theunderlying causes or end result produced by the drug itself is that of depression. It explains why the addicts try to maintain to the maximum, the euphoric state and are unwilling to rehabilitate. A pilot study was conducted for the treatment of ex-methadone addicts with large dosages of antidepressants and anxiolytics. Out of 117 ex-methadone and soft drug addicts treated with antidepressants and anxiolytics, 46% ex-methadone and 46.3% soft drug abusers failed to become abstinent. The failures were basically related to the management of treatment. The study suggests a possibility for detoxification from methadone and control of relapse by antidepressants and anxiolytics.
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PMID:New approach to the rehabilitation of the hard core drug addict (heroin methadone addicts) a pilot community study. 2 16

Morphine, the principal alkaloid of "papaver somniferum" is the reference substance of central analgesics, the parmacodynamic constants of which are: analgesia and the possibility of addiction. Respiratory depression is, for many of them, a grave side-effect. At the present time, no substance in this category is fully satisfactory and all may result in dependence. Equi-analgesic doses of dextromoramide, phenoperidine and Fentanyl are less than those of morphine, whilst those of pethidine and pentazocine are higher. Study of the pharmacokinetics of these various substances indicates no common elements, and it is difficult to consider that the analgesic action is proportional to blood levels. Clinical assessment of the mean duration of action makes it possible to divide morphine derivatives into substances with a very short action (20 to 45 minutes) such as Febtanyl and phenoperidine, and those with a longer action (1 to 4 hours) which includes the majority of the other substances. The analgesic activity of Methoadone lasts for 4 to 6 hours. Morphine antagonists such as Methadone, nalophine, naloxone and naltrexone possess specific problems in terms of their utilization. Pharmacological data concerning theses substances are described.
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PMID:[Pharmacology of morphine and its derivatives (review)]. 2 28

St Christophers' Hospice near London is now internationally known as a special centre for the care of terminally ill patients. In these cases, the relief of symptoms is paramount, and prominent among those symptoms is pain. Such pain can almost always be relieved without euphoria or lessening of consciousness. More than 60% of patients admitted to St Christopher's complain of pain, and the scheme of management outlined below results in substantial or complete relief of pain in all of them. Addiction does not occur when control of the patient's pain is part of the pattern of total care. The author considers management of pain of varying severity, together with associated symptoms such as vomiting, anorexia, dry mouth and hiccup, dyspnoea, cough, anxiety and depression, insomnia, constipation and diarrhoea.
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PMID:Drug control of common symptoms in the terminally ill patient. 6 49

213 male and female patients attending a methadone maintenance clinic completed Zung's self-rating depression scale (SDS). The mean SDS index was 53.71 (s.d. = 11.15), which falls within the morbidity range of depression as found in previous studies of psychiatric and normal populations. There was no significant correlation between methadone dosage and SDS scores. The difference between the mean SDS index of subjects on a stable dosage of methadone and subjects being detoxified was not significant. The result may have important theoretical and practical implications with respect to the role of depression in addiction.
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PMID:Depressive symptomatology in drug addicts: therapeutic and aetiological implications. 10 37

Ethanol through its primary catabolite, acetaldehyde, competitively inhibits oxidation of aldehyde dehydrogenase substrates. As a consequence biogenic amines form increased quantities of alcohols rather than the corresponding acids. During this biotransformation, condensation reactions between deaminated and intact amines may occur which can yield tetrahydropapaverolines. These compounds are closely related to precursors of opioids which is cause to link ethanol abuse to morphine addiction. There is, however, no pharmacological or clinical evidence suggesting similarities between ethanol dependence or opiod addiction. Acetaldehyde plays an additional role in alkaloidal formation in vitro. Biogenic amines may react with acetaldehyde to form isoquinoline or carboline compounds. Some of these substances have significant pharmacological activity. Furthermore, they may enter neural stores and displace the natural neurotransmitter. Thus, they can act as false neurotransmitters. Some investigators believe that chronic ethanol ingestion leads to significant formation of such aberrant compounds which may then upset autonomic nervous system balance. This disturbance may explain the abnormal sympathetic activity seen in withdrawal. While these ideas about the etiology of alcohol abuse have a definite appeal, they are naturally based on in vitro preliminary work. Much study of the quantitative pharmacology of these compounds in animals is required before judgement can be made as to the merits of the proposed hypotheses. In the meantime, pharmacological studies on the ability of ethanol to depress respiration in the mouse has revealed that unlike opioids or barbituates, respiratory depression induced by ethanol requires the presence in brain of serotonin. This neurotransmitter also mediates the respiratory effects of several other alcohols but curiously, not chloral hydrate, yet this compound is purported to alter biogenic amine metabolism much like ethanol. Thus, the response to ethanol can be pharmacologically separated from other major narcotic classes such as opioids and barbiturates by respiratory depression effects. The specific requirement for serotonin mediation exhibited by ethanol and several other alcohols opens the door for a rational therapeutic approach to the treatment of alcohol abuse. At the same time, this finding tends to lessen the probability that alcoholism is in some way connected with the formation of addictive alkaloids.
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PMID:Interaction of biogenic amines with ethanol. 23 68

By reviewing causes of death among cohorts of various major disease entities or conditions, one may infer that a large majority of suicides are associated with a relatively small number of conditions. From the available follow-up studies, we might estimate that the following percentage of affected individuals will die by suicide: primary (endogenous) depression, 15 per cent; reactive (neurotic) depression, 15 per cent; alcoholism, 15 per cent; schizophrenia, 10 per cent; psychopathic personality, 5 per cent; opiate addiction, 10 per cent or more. Rough estimates of the number of suicides per year in the United States attributable to each condition might be as follows (using low incidence figures): depression, 12,900; alcoholism, 6,900; schizophrenia, 3,800; psychopathy, 2,000 (?); drug addiction, 900.
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PMID:Conditions predisposing to suicide: a review. 32 25

Buprenorphine, a derivative of the morphine alkaloid thebaine, is a strong analgesic with marked narcotic antagonist activity. In studies in relatively small groups of postoperative patients with moderate to severe pain, one or a few doses of buprenorphine parenterally (by intramuscular or slow intravenous injection) or sublingually were at least as effective as standard doses of other strong analgesics such as morphine, pethidine or pentazocine, and buprenorphine was longer acting than these agents. Only a small number of patients with chronic pain have received repeated doses, but in such patients there was no need for increased doses during several weeks to months of treatment. Buprenorphine appears to produce side effects which are similar to those seen with other morphine-like compounds, including respiratory depression. There is apparently no completely reliable specific antagonist for buprenorphine's respiratory depressant effect, since even very high doses of the antagonist drug naloxone may produce only a partial reversal. The respiratory stimulant drug doxapram has overcome respiratory depression in volunteers and in a few patients in a clinical setting, but such studies have not been done in an overdose situation. Animal studies and a direct addiction study in a few volunteers suggest that the dependence liability of buprenorphine may be lower than that of other older morphine-like drugs. However, a slowly emerging abstinence syndrome did occur on withdrawal after very high doses administered for 1 to 2 months. A definitive statement on the drug's dependence liability and abuse potential cannot be made until it has had much wider use for a longer period of time.
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PMID:Buprenorphine: a review of its pharmacological properties and therapeutic efficacy. 37 45

Modern world is hostile to sleep and by its achievements it disturbs our hereditary biological rhythm. About 80% of all the cases of hyposomny are caused by emotional disturbances in the broadest sense. Somnipathy in a prison shows of course considerable characteristics, although here, too, we can find the same problems a normal doctor working outside a prison has to cope with. 54% of all the inmates of the prison in Straubing (= JVA Straubling) complain about somnipathy; from the prisoners more than 50 years old only 43%. Physical diseases cause somnipathy within 19% of the older prisoners where we find predominantly heart-diseases and circulatory diseases. 5% of somnipathy are due to an abuse of coffee or nicotine and the rest is due to emotional disturbances in the broadest sense. The normal medical treatment for simple somnipathy is of no success in a prison and the prisoners abuse the normally used medicaments to get into a state of ectasy. Therefore medicaments on a vegetable basis are used, also neuroleptica and medicaments against depression, where there is practically no danger for addiction.
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PMID:[Sleep disorders in a isolation situation. Hyposomnia in older convicts]. 45 36

The opinions of four psychiatric diagnostic groups (schizophrenia, depression, addiction, neuroses) concerning 11 methods of treatment are compared. In the effects of treatment there were as well similarities as differences specific for each of the above groups. Surprisingly similar to a corresponding American investigation, the traditional concept of treatment therapist and drug is considered the most effective.
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PMID:[Effects of psychiatric treatment in the view of psychiatric inpatients (author's transl)]. 60 66

The article describes a ward for the admittance of female addicts in a provincial government mental hospital (Landeskrankenhaus). Addiction is interpreted as the sequel of a severe psychic disturbance (manifested as depression in most of the women) in conjunction with socially disturbed conditions (lack of social function, familial upsets). Possibilities of treatment in a provincial government hospital are limited. The essential therapeutic chance is offered by a firmly patterned ward structure and by creating an "antidepressive environment" which meets to a certain extent the patient's innate craving for security and her need "to belong", while at the same time promoting her own initiative and sense of responsibility.
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PMID:[Addiction in women. Observations on the psychic and social situation of women admitted to the addicts ward of a provincial government mental hospital (Landeskrankenhaus) (author's transl)]. 75 73


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