Israeli Researchers May Have Discovered a Cellular Cure for Addiction

We Knew It All Along, Quitting Cold Turkey Makes Addiction Worse on a Cellular Level

We’ve all heard it before: “Don’t quit cold turkey, it doesn’t work!” Or, “It’s dangerous to quit using drugs cold turkey.” Well it’s true. And now we have proof. Hopefully all of us know one of addiction’s principal causes is a genetic predisposition to the mental and physical disease. Well, some ingenious scientists from Bar Ilan University in Israel are attempting to remedy addiction at its source: the DNA causing addicts to succumb to addiction, according to The Times of Israel.

The researchers from Bar Ilan University have published their findings in the Journal of Neuroscience. Their research discovered DNA changed the most while the body experienced the grueling withdrawal process. The experiments were performed using lab rats. The objective of the study was to identify how to successfully block addiction on a cellular level. During withdrawal the lab rats’ DNA associated with controlling addiction altered dramatically from their organic forms. (The experiment used cocaine as the addictive stimulant.) It is because of these finding researchers are warning against quitting cold turkey; there is not only an outward emotional response, but a cellular one, in which recovering addicts cannot escape, and are acutely vulnerable to relapse.

The Times of Israel quote Professor Gal Yadid and Susan Gonda, “The mainstay of current approaches to treating addiction might actually aggravate it,” During the withdrawal period researchers discovered hundreds of genes changed- all associated with addiction. Their solution? To inject their subjects with RG108, a DNA methylation inhibitor (barring genes from altering in response to withdrawal).

 

Moshe Szyf reports their findings, and is quoted by the Times of Israel,

 

“We discovered that injecting the drug RG108 just before the animals were exposed to the light cue [to consume cocaine] after the long withdrawal not only stopped the addictive behavior of the animals, it also lasted for a longer period. This suggests that a single treatment with RG108 could reverse or perhaps cure drug addiction.”

 

Although this study is in its relevant infancy, and may not be introduced by America’s researchers immediately, this breakthrough in addiction and recovery treatment is major. If human subjects respond to treatment to the same way in which these lab subjects did, addiction may very well become similar to a doctor visit- wherein patients get a shot, not for management, or to dull the symptoms of withdrawal, but to counteract the disease on a cellular level.

In closing, the Times of Israel quotes Szyf, “We inherit our genes from our parents and these genes remain fixed throughout our life and are passed on to our children; we can do very little to change adverse genetics changes that we inherit.

 

“In contract, epigenetic marks such as DNA methylation act as switches and dimmers of genes- they can be switched on, off, or dimmed,”

 

 

Essentially what Professor Szyf is saying, is that we can control the genes prone to addiction passed down to us by blocking them.

 

To stay updated with the latest in addiction and recovery feats made by the industry follow us: Facebook | Twitter | Google+
Have your own ideas? Let us know and comment below!

The post Israeli Researchers May Have Discovered a Cellular Cure for Addiction appeared first on Harbor Village Florida.

from Misc http://ift.tt/1RZatFR via Heroin Rehab Dallas