Wednesday, May 31, 2000

Hypnosis As Smoking Cessation Therapy Needs Further Scrutiny

ScienceDaily (May 31, 2000) — COLUMBUS, Ohio - Smokers who are hopeful that hypnosis will help them kick their habit need to temper their expectations, according to new research.

A review of nearly five dozen studies showed that while hypnosis may have some effect as an anti-smoking treatment, it is by no means an end-all and be-all treatment for smoking cessation.

"Giving hypnosis the stamp of a well-established treatment for smoking cessation is premature," said Joseph Green, a study co-author and associate professor of psychology at Ohio State University's Lima campus.

Click here to read entire article at Science Daily.com

Friday, March 10, 2000

Anti-Cocaine Vaccine Produces Antibodies, Shown To Be Safe In Yale Researcher's Phase 1 Study

ScienceDaily (Mar. 10, 2000) — New Haven, Conn. -- A therapeutic cocaine vaccine designed to suppress the high addicts get from taking cocaine is safe and produced cocaine antibodies in humans, a Yale study finds.

Thomas Kosten, M.D., principal investigator on the phase 1 study, and his team administered the vaccine to 34 former cocaine abusers living in a residential treatment facility.

The vaccine, TA-CD, is designed to generate drug-specific antibodies, which bind to cocaine and prevent it from traveling to the brain from the bloodstream. This neutralizes its psychoactive effect.

"The vaccine is very safe and we did not observe any major side effects," said Kosten, professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine. "TA-CD was effective in producing cocaine-specific antibodies, which lasted throughout the trial. More advanced trials are already underway. TA-CD offers the potential for a completely new and highly viable approach to a very serious problem for which there are no alternative therapies available.

Click here to read entire article at Science Daily.com