Summary: Alcohol abuse disorder is a significant problem among adults. It is among the preventable causes of ill-health. Nonetheless, doctors who treat alcohol abuse disorder know that treating the condition is not easy. There are high relapse rates among the patients. In addition, it appears that binge drinking at a young age causes epigenetic changes, making people prone to anxiety and alcohol abuse disorders. Thus, experts think that gene therapy, Opioid addiction treatment and Telehealth treatment could be an effective way to treat the condition.

Binge drinking is a significant problem in the US. Studies suggest that about one-sixth of all adults in the US engage in binge drinking. These people do not essentially have alcohol abuse disorder, and they are not living with alcoholism. However, they drink excessively from time to time.

 

Binge drinking is described as when someone consumes 4-5 or more drinks on occasion. Binge drinking is associated with significant harm. For example, it is the cause of motor vehicle accidents, violence, memory and learning problems, and more.

 

New studies suggest that some people are prone to binge drinking. They are often well-educated individuals with good incomes. However, they are used to consuming alcohol excessively now and then. Thus, they are exposing themselves to undue risk. Binge drinking is quite different from alcoholism, as binge drinkers are sober most of the time.

 

Researchers have long tried to understand why some individuals continue binge drinking. It seems that binge drinking at a young age causes changes in gene expression. Thus, a person becomes hard-wired to drink excessively. It also means that managing binge drinking by medications is quite challenging.

 

Researchers have identified genes associated with binge drinking and tools to modify them

 

Of course, genes do not change readily. Thus, modern studies show that high alcohol consumption causes epigenetic changes. In epigenetic changes, genes remain intact or unchanged. However, gene expression changes due to lifestyle choices. Once gene expression has changed, it continues to cause trouble for the rest of your life.

 

There could be many ways of overcoming epigenetic changes. For example, unlike genetic changes, these epigenetic changes might be overcome through lifestyle modification. However, some researchers think that the faster way could be by using gene therapy.

 

For gene therapy, two things are required. First, science needs to identify the genes that were altered due to binge drinking, and then they need to find tools for gene editing. It appears that science has identified both of them, at least in animal studies.

 

In a study done on mice models, researchers fed them with excessive alcohol for a long. And they found that this led to specific epigenetic changes. For example, they saw that binge drinking especially led to the changes in the so-called Arc gene. The changes in this particular gene expression occurred emotion and memory center. These changes predispose individuals to anxiety and alcohol use disorder later in life.

 

It means that editing this particular gene may help reduce anxiety and the risk of alcohol use disorder. The problem with epigenetic changes is that they continue to persist for the rest of life. These changes are quite challenging to reverse through lifestyle modification. However, one may alter these changes via gene editing.

 

In the study, researchers used CRISPR-dCas9 for gene manipulation. This tool is the gold standard for gene therapy these days. They found the tool quite effective for reducing anxiety and other changes, thus reducing the risk of alcohol abuse disorder.

 

Although these are still early days, researchers think it is just a matter of time before gene therapy becomes widely available. These findings can definitely contribute to the treatment of alcohol abuse disorder in adults. In addition, it can help provide a permanent cure for addiction.

Summary: Connecticut legalized recreational marijuana in June 2021; by October, there were 39 reports of overdose. However, doctors now believe that fentanyl-laced marijuana caused these cases of acute toxicity. Although doctors could demonstrate fentanyl-laced marijuana in just one case, they know that fentanyl-laced drugs are pretty common. Moreover, the history of patients shows that 30 out of 39 had a history of opioid abuse. Thus, intentionally, or unintentionally, they were exposed to fentanyl. However, for legal reasons, they were hesitant to report the truth. Nevertheless, it is something that all users of legal marijuana must be aware of.

Marijuana is finally legal in many US states. People have been demanding to legalize marijuana for a long. There are many reasons for such a demand. After all, humans have used marijuana for ages, and despite some ill effects, it does not cause severe addiction or toxicity. Moreover, its health harms are well known to science. In short, it is a relatively safer substance of abuse and is of natural origin. But not only that as it also has some health benefits like pain reduction, managing gastrointestinal issues, and more.

 

Connecticut became the latest state to legalize marijuana in July 2021 finally. But then came the reports of severe intoxication with it. Within the three months of legalization, 39 reports of marijuana overdose were reported. However, the cases were not typical of marijuana overdose, and they benefited greatly from the naloxone dosage. Naloxone is mainly used to manage opioid overdose. This led experts to believe that people have misinformed doctors. Either intentionally or non-intentionally, they smoked fentanyl-laced marijuana. Moreover, testing of some samples confirmed the theory.

 

Recreational use of marijuana may be legal in some states. However, not everyone is going to use it for health conditions or responsibly. Many people addicted to street drugs and opioids are also likely to use marijuana. However, for many of them, marijuana fails to provide the kind of high they are looking for, and thus they might use marijuana laced with other drugs. In other cases, it may occur without users knowing about it. Some of the opioids are much cheaper to produce than growing marijuana. Thus, adding them to marijuana may help users achieve more substantial effects quickly.

 

Fentanyl-laced marijuana poses a significant health threat

One such opioid commonly mixed with various substances of abuse is fentanyl. It is a synthetic opioid. It is produced cheaply at the industrial scale and is readily available. Thus, it is often mixed with more expensive drugs like heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, and more. This helps to produce addictive drugs cheaply. Unfortunately, however, many people unknowingly may use such drugs or fentanyl-laced marijuana.

 

However, here it is vital to understand that some addicted to opioids may do it intentionally. But, if they overdose on fentanyl, they are not likely to report it to avoid legal issues. Thus, they are more likely to inform only about marijuana use.

 

This kind of mixing is dangerous in many ways, as users are unaware of what they took. This also creates a problem for doctors treating drug overdose. Even if the users know that they have overdosed on fentanyl, they still avoid telling the truth. But doctors know that marijuana may cause acute toxicity but rarely causes severe issues like breathing problems or loss of consciousness, unlike fentanyl or other opioids.

 

Although in the Connecticut cases, experts could find fentanyl-laced marijuana in just one of the samples. Still, they have a firm reason to believe that most, if not all, of the cases, were due to fentanyl overdose. This is apparent in the history of users, as 30 out of 39 were known to have opioid abuse history. Additionally, doctors can judge based on the symptoms. Further, naloxone, a drug used to treat opioid overdose, could help in most cases.

 

Although not everyone believes the case of fentanyl-laced marijuana, experts warn that it is more common than many people realize. Fentanyl-laced drugs are pretty common, so why could fentanyl-laced marijuana not be possible?

 

Doctors warn that marijuana users be careful and aware of this, as fentanyl-laced marijuana or drugs may cause much more severe health effects. It is the common cause of unintentional drug overdose and death.

Summary: The prevalence of mental health issues has increased significantly in the last few decades. Finding mental health counseling support has been challenging in the US for many years. Psychologists and psychiatrists are not just taking new patients; waiting times are several months long. Moreover, it appears that the mental health care system was ill-prepared for multidimensional stressors like the coronavirus epidemic. The need for mental counseling increased significantly due to coronavirus-related stress. Thus, people are increasingly finding it difficult to find mental counseling support.

Getting timely brain health counseling has never been as difficult as these days. The delays are unbearably long. Thus, many people have to look for alternative ways to manage their health, like practicing yoga or seeking online advice.

Things are especially bad for those living in larger cities, where getting qualified mental health advice may take months. The Internet is full of stories of people who urgently need such support, yet they could not find any. For example, many need mental health counseling to overcome their grief. If they cannot find support immediately, things may become much worse. But it appears that no one is willing to accept new clients.

The coronavirus pandemic has made things worse

Though getting timely mental counseling was never easy in cities like Los Angeles, things have worsened lately. It appears that many more people are seeking help due to coronavirus, and there are just not enough qualified mental health care workers in the US.

Just take an example of Boston Medical Center, which started contacting parents of children who joined the waiting list in April 2021. Unfortunately, they had to wait for more than 10 months to get the help of a child psychiatrist.

The American Psychological Association (APA) recently surveyed and found enormous pressures on the psychologist workforce. The coronavirus pandemic has increased the demand for treating conditions like depressive disorder, anxiety, grief, sleep disorders, and substance abuse by as much as 50% in many instances.

In the survey conducted by APA, 62% of psychologists reported an increase in patient referrals since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. In addition, they reported an almost 40% increase in workload. Thus, 65% said that they have no capacity for new patients.

APA, which represents 133,000 psychologists, is not surprised by these issues. They have long predicted these things.

APA long predicted the deficit of mental health care workers

An article was published in the APA’s journal way back in 2020 when the association said that the present system is not ready to handle the upsurge in mental health issues caused by multidimensional stressors like covid-19.

The reason why it is so hard to find a mental health counselor

Mental health counselors could be psychologists or people trained in managing mental health issues. They can generally provide various advice and non-pharmacological means of managing mental health issues like telehealth. However, these people do not prescribe medical drugs. Then there are psychiatrists, who would often prescribe medications to address mental issues. In addition, people seek help from psychiatrists for more severe mental problems like major depression or even schizophrenia.

There appears to be a deficit of psychologists and psychiatrists in the US, which is the main reason why people have to wait so long to get help. The number of people living with mental health has increased significantly during the last few decades. But, the present health system, which was created after World War two, failed to foresee this upsurge in mental health problems.

An even more severe problem is finding narrow specialists. For example, it is highly challenging to find a specialist for mental problems in children. Similarly, very few psychiatrists understand the requirements of ethnic minorities in the US. Thus, finding a psychiatrist with experience in treating black people may be tricky if you are black.

To conclude, the US is in the middle of a mental health epidemic, and there is an urgent need to carry out reforms to the healthcare system. However, it is not something that can be done overnight. Till then, most people are left on their own to find a brain health counselor.