Dementia
About 5-8% of all people over the age of 65 have some
form of dementia, and this number doubles every five years above that
age.
Dementia is the loss of mental ability that is severe enough to
interfere with
people's every life and Alzheimer's disease is the most common type of
dementia
in aging people. American typical diet contains high amount of saturated
and trans fat, artificial ingredients with less fruits and vegetable
which can lead to dementia and other kind of diseases
I. Causes of Dementia
J. Substance Abused Causes of Dementia
Illicit drug used may cause nervous system impairment as a result of
direct and indirect effects on the integrity and function of nervous
system tissue and, potentially, through immune effects. HIV-1 infection
poses an additional risk of impairment, and this risk may be decreased
as a result of antiretroviral drug treatment(1). Others researchers
suggested that injection drug use represents the primary risk factor for
up to 40% of
patients with HIV infection.(2)
1. Heroin
Heroin (diacetylmorphine or morphine diacetate (INN)), also known as diamorphine (BAN), is an opiate drug extracted from the seed pod of the Asian
opium poppy plant. Scientist at University of Cambridge, in the study consisted of a neuropsychological test battery which included
both conventional tests and also computerised tests of recognition
memory, spatial working memory, planning, sequence generation, visual
discrimination learning, and attentional set-shifting of groups of subjects whose primary drug of abuse was amphetamine or heroin were compared, indicate that chronic drug use may lead to distinct patterns of
cognitive impairment that may be associated with dysfunction of
different components of cortico-striatal circuitry(3).
2. Cocaine and Methamphetamine
Cocaine (benzoylmethylecgonine)
(INN) is a crystalline tropane alkaloid obtained from the leaves of the
coca plant. researchers at reported that report a patient with rapidly accelerating HIV dementia
accompanied by seizures and an unusual movement disorder despite highly
potent antiretroviral therapy as a result of methamphetamine and
cocaine(4).
3. Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD)
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid,
is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known
for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking
processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an altered sense
of time, etc.(5). There are report that LSD may temporarily impair the
ability to make sensible judgments and
understand common dangers, thus making the user more susceptible to
accidents and personal injury. It may cause temporary confusion,
difficulty with abstract thinking, or signs of impaired memory and
attention span similar to brain damage(5), but in the article, by Dr. Daniel X. Freedman's psychiatric interviews did not reveal clinically
significant signs of organic impairment in behavior or life situations.
For some, there were characterological and psychological features which
were somewhat eccentric; but, over-all, the ability to judge, to acquire
competence and new learning, to focus attention and concentrate, to
recall and retrieve relevant information, appeared intact. Where unusual
personality traits were encountered, they seemed to have been present
in the pre-LSD life history, style, and subculture of the subjects.(6)
4. Ecstasy (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA)
Ecstasy, a highly addictive drug, is a powerful CNS stimulant
with chemically similar to the stimulant methamphetamine and
hallucinogen mescaline and commonly refers to its street pill form. In
the article "InfoFacts: MDMA (Ecstasy)" posted in National Institute of
Drug abuse wrote that MDMA can produce confusion, depression, sleep
problems, drug craving,
and severe anxiety. These problems can occur soon after taking the drug
or, sometimes, even days or weeks after taking MDMA. In addition,
chronic users of MDMA perform more poorly than nonusers on certain types
of cognitive or memory tasks, although some of these effects may be due
to the use of other drugs in combination with MDMA. Research in animals
indicates that MDMA can be harmful to the brain—one study in nonhuman
primates showed that exposure to MDMA for only 4 days caused damage to
serotonin nerve terminals that was still evident 6 to 7 years later.
Although similar neurotoxicity has not been shown definitively in
humans, the wealth of animal research indicating MDMA’s damaging
properties strongly suggests that MDMA is not a safe drug for human
consumption.(7)
5. Other illicit drugs
Finally, we would like to conclude this article by quoting the study at University of Rostock, Dr. Büttner A. indicated that Drug abuse
represents a significant health issue. The major substances abused
include cannabis, opiates, cocaine, amphetamine, methamphetamine and
'ecstasy'. Alterations of intracellular messenger pathways,
transcription factors and immediate early genes within the brain reward
system seem to be fundamentally important for the development of
addiction and chronic drug abuse. Genetic risk factors and changes in gene expression associated with drug abuse
are still poorly understood. Besides cardiovascular complications,
psychiatric and neurologic symptoms are the most common manifestations
of drug toxicity. A broad spectrum of changes affecting the central nervous system is seen in drug abusers... Systematic histological, immunohistochemical and morphometric
investigations have shown profound morphological alterations in the
brains of polydrug abusers. The major findings comprise neuronal loss,
neurodegenerative alterations, a reduction of glial fibrillary acidic
protein-immunopositive astrocytes, widespread axonal damage with
concomitant microglial activation as well as reactive and degenerative
changes of the cerebral microvasculature. These observations demonstrate
that drugs of abuse
initiate a cascade of interacting toxic, vascular and hypoxic factors,
which finally result in widespread disturbances within the complex
network of central nervous system cell-to-cell interactions.(8)
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Sources
(1) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10871763
(2) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11057932
(3) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10882838
(4) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11519485
(5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysergic_acid_diethylamide
(6) http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/cu/CU52.html
(7) http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/infofacts/mdma-ecstasy
(8) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20946118
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