Addiction and Substance Abuse

In recent years, stress and stress-coping mechanisms constitute a growing public healthcare issue concerning modern society. Experiencing stress engenders a great complex mechanism named stress response, which consists of a rapid release of catecholamines by the sympathetic nervous system, followed by a slower response in which hormones, mainly glucocorticoids (GCs), are synthesized and released to the bloodstream.

In a follow-up to the 2016 paper “Preweaning iron deficiency increases non-contingent responding during cocaine self-administration in rats”, we briefly discuss relevant new data regarding iron deficiency published through August, 2021. The original work investigated if early iron deficiency would increase later vulnerability for substance use disorder.

There are many measures available that survey positive and negative emotional indicators of wellbeing in children and adolescents. In fact, our work identifies 98 measures, designed to measure negative self-emotions in youth populations. However, only eight of these measures incorporated a negative self-referential emotion item or subscale; that is, an item, or items, where the subject and the reference are directed toward the self in the final measure. This is important because negative self-referential emotions, especially self-criticism, are key antecedents of mental health disorders such as anxiety, depression and eating disorders.

Self-injurious behavior or Non-Suicidal Self Injury (NSSI) is rapidly increasing in prevalence in the adolescent populations of the western world. Nevertheless, the training and education for physicians concerning this topic remains limited. Combined with NSSI’s tendency to become addictive in nature and continue well past adolescence, this particular issue is important for the physician to understand to provide adequate long-term treatment. Due to the overwhelming responsibility for the physician to understand and treat the entire patient, this particular article looks to clear the muddy waters surrounding NSSI, discuss how it can become an addiction, review the literature, discuss treatments and therapies, and provide key clinical pearls on building and maintaining relationships with patients afflicted by this disorder.

The onset of menstruation is a landmark event in women’s life which is known to bring many psychological and emotional changes along with physical changes. In many countries, particularly in developing and emerging countries, such as India, it also brings various challenges for women to manage menstruation hygienically.