Sik,?With reference to the article by Colonel Chopra in your March number on ' Drug addiction in India and its treatment the value of lecithin in the treatment of opium addicts does not appear to have been assessed at its proper value. When attending the Ninth Congress of the Far Eastern Association of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene at Nanking, one of the things which struck me most was the grea...

BACKGROUND Impact of substance abuse on outcome of hospitalized patients with acute myocardial infarction (MI) is a frequent question. Available studies show disagreements over its impact, thus we performed this study to find a clear answer. METHODS In a cross sectional study, 304 patients (include 152 consecutive opium dependents and equal number of independents) with acute MI admitted to co...

preventive and curative measures have been the subject of consideration in various provinces with a view to eradicating the evil. The authors for many years ?past have been interested in this problem and have evolved a method of treatment of opium addiction which has given satisfactory results in their hands as well as in those of others. A careful study of the withdrawal symptoms and the bioch...

BACKGROUND Opium abuse significantly affects the nutritional status of users and frequently leads to undernourishment. Methadone maintenance therapy has been used as one of the possible ways to prevent of infection diseases such as HIV and hepatitis B and C and improve the quality of life in opioid-dependent patients. OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to assess the anthropometric and socio...

background substance abuse during pregnancy leads to considerable adverse effects in mothers and their infants. objectives the purpose of this study was to evaluate perinatal complications in opium-addicted mothers and their newborns, exposed to opium in utero. patients and methods during a one-year period (2008 - 2009), 45 opium-addicted mothers and their newborns were enrolled in a case-contr...

Background: Opium addiction alters immune responses to stresses such as an injury due to changing the secretion of cytokines. The present study assessed the effect of opium addiction on the cytokines [tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα), interferon-γ (IFN-γ), interleukin-4 (IL-4), and IL-10] before and after laparotomy. Methods: Male rats were randomly divided into control and opium addicted (n = 20...

Dear Editor, Atrial fibrillation (AF) is one of the most frequent complications after cardiac surgery. It occurs in approximately 20% to 35% of patients after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery and in more than 50% of patients after valve surgery (1). AF after cardiac surgery is a major cause of patients’ morbidity and mortality. Moreover, it can prolong hospitalization and increase he...

BACKGROUND Opium abuse is one of the widespread social problems, and one of the most worrying aspects of it is the effect of parents' drug abuse on the fetus. OBJECTIVES The present study has investigated the correlation between opium abuse during pregnancy in mothers with congenital heart defects in their children. MATERIALS AND METHODS From early 2009 to late 2011, for two consecutive yea...

A number of papers have empirically investigated the rational addiction model proposed by Becker and Murphy (1988) by using data on different harmful drugs, like cigarettes, alcohol, caffeine, opium, cocaine; but also activities independent of a biological or pharmaceutical dependency have been analysed, such as gambling, calorie consumption, news, arts, and cinema. The purpose of this paper is...