OBJECTIVE To prospectively assess if opiate antagonist treatment or the opiate-free status could reverse opiate-related vasculopathy. DESIGN Longitudinal Open Observational, Serial 'N of One', over 6.5 years under various treatment conditions: opiate dependence, naltrexone and opiate-free. SETTING Primary care, Australia. PARTICIPANTS 20 opiate-dependent patients (16 males: 16 cases of bu...

Background; Methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) is an evidence-based approach for opiate addiction treatment. While its effectiveness in reducing opiate use has been evidently verified, unanswered questions with respect to the cultural scenarios for MMT programs remain unanswered. This study was conducted to explore understanding address MMT initiation among a women-recruited sample of persons ...

BACKGROUND Injecting drug users are at high risk of acquiring blood-borne infections. Ireland has had a harm reduction policy of methadone maintenance and needle exchange since 1992. AIM To estimate prevalence of hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV infection and appropriate uptake of hepatitis B vaccine in methadone attendees and to make recommendations for a simple record-based surveillance sys...

BACKGROUND The safety of opiate use for patients with Crohn's disease (CD) has long been a concern. The recent Crohn's therapy, resource, evaluation, and assessment tool (TREAT) registry update has added to these concerns by demonstrating an association of opiate use with an increased risk of infection and death in CD. While the association is clear, the relationship of opiates to these negativ...

In France, all registered medical doctors have been allowed to prescribe buprenorphine without any special education or licensing since 1995. This has led to a rapidly increasing number of opiate-dependent users under buprenorphine treatment in primary care. French physician compensation mechanisms, pharmacy services, and medical insurance funding all have contributed to minimizing barriers to ...

The authors used rats to study the impact of a history of opiate exposures on behavioral and autonomic responses to restraint stress. Brief restraint (30 min) provoked tachycardia and a pressor response, anxiety (as indexed by social interaction), grooming, and reduced exploration. The pressor response was reduced at 1 day, but not 7 days, after last opiate exposure; tachycardia was unaffected ...

We evaluated the effects of opiate consumption on semen quality, sperm function, seminal plasma antioxidant capacity, and sperm DNA integrity. A total of 142 opiate addict men (group 1) were enrolled in the study and 146 healthy age matched male volunteers (group 2) served as controls. Two semen analyses were performed in all participants. Sperm chromatin structure assay (SCSA) was used to iden...

CONTEXT Although drug cues reliably activate the brain's reward system, studies rarely examine how the processing of drug stimuli compares with natural reinforcers or relates to clinical outcomes. OBJECTIVES To determine hedonic responses to natural and drug reinforcers in long-term heroin users and to examine the utility of these responses in predicting future heroin use. DESIGN Prospectiv...