Is physical addiction a scientific fact?

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Yngve
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Is physical addiction a scientific fact?

Post by Yngve »

I've been on The Wai Diet for exactly 10 years. I suspect that the concept of physical addiction is a lie. I know cooked food causes acne but that's a different topic. This is also not about the definition of addiction, it is about the chemistry aspect.

How can we debunk the concept that so-called addictive substances cause dopamine suppression or dopamine depletion? I recently realized that science has not explained the chemistry behind this idea. It is so far all hypothetical. Websites that relate and popularize scientific studies present these hypotheses as though they were factual. People don't understand that they are hypothetical statements and neither did I at first. I was also not aware of the amount of research fraud that is involved when it comes to neuroscience and brain diseases.

There is an indication that somebody wants us to believe in this dopamine suppression/depletion idea, and is trying to find fraudulent ways to support that idea. Apparently it began in 1985, when the cocaine induced dopamine depletion hypothesis was born:
"New concepts in cocaine addiction: the dopamine depletion hypothesis" ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2999657
"In 1985, Dackis and Gold (1985) suggested that cocaine addiction stems from the depletion of synaptic dopamine in the mesolimbic dopamine reward system, leading to a dysphoric withdrawal state that drives cocaine seeking to restore dopamine to normal, drug-naïve levels." ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3206647/

Science has not defined addiction beyond a list of human behaviors. There can be many causes for the behaviors which supposedly define physical addiction. That cooked food attaches to benzodiazepene or opioid receptors does not say much, and it is a circular argument to say that since opiates are addictive, then substances stimulating opioid receptors must also be addictive. I am specifically looking to investigate the claim that so-called addictive substances cause addiction brain disease, not merely addiction psychology and behavior.

While searching for articles on the effect of opiates on dopamine, I found a page (Dopaminedialogue) describing the supposed effect, which is actually a rehab website, and of course the rehab industry is based on fraud and pseudoscience. They claim that "Much of the latest research shows it takes about 90-days for the brain to jump-start the healing process."

Obviously for this message board, the unbelievable slowness of healing-- 90 days -- is a lie. The study is using either people on a cooked diet, essentially not sober or abstinent. Or they are using non-abstinent mice/rats, which are often fed pure gluten. Without gluten/casomorphin/beta-carbolines, it would very likely take less than 90 days, but only if the drugs actually created something to be healing from.

The definition of sobriety and abstinence has obviously never been established, whether they claim to have been or not. The researchers are omitting so-called addictive food substances from the study as if they did not exist, or as if the addict is not eating food during that time, or is on a raw diet. That demonstrates how addiction research is fraudulent and not to be relied or on referenced when you want to define and find evidence of physical addiction.

The next thing I found on addiction is more convincing and creates more motivation for discrediting or pointing out possible research fraud. "Previous studies revealed that the brain makes up by producing a protein called BDNF (brain derived neurotrophic factor), which decreases the brain's normal dopamine production after someone comes down from a high." jneurosci.org/content/34/23/7899.abstract

My question is which part did they discover and which part is hypothetical. Apparently, the answer they are looking for "still remains elusive". It is all just a hypothesis to support the original pseudoscientific addiction propaganda which they plan to extend to every human behavior in order to control it. The original psychological definition of addiction, a list of human behaviors, will remain the same, because to establish such a label was the main goal. Everything that increases dopamine will be labeled addictive, and everyone who breathes will be labeled as having the addiction brain disease.

How has physical addiction been studied? Studies using people eating a diet excluding foods which work the same way as so-called addictive drugs? That study doesn't exist. Or have they been using the non-scientific method doing un-controlled experiments, so that they can present whichever lies they want? Even this BDNF study would be impossible when you take into account the substances in food which also attach to dopamine receptors. Is it really fake, or am I missing something?
panacea
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Re: Is physical addiction a scientific fact?

Post by panacea »

It's extremely complicated and we don't have the tools to measure every variable.
Current neuroscience is vastly flawed just like every other scientific field, mostly due to weak reasoning and weak experiment design and weak motives (usually there is a monetary incentive of some kind for some company to find some result they want). Even if you could look at something with a perfect study though, pure data isn't the answer - it's not practical in this lifetime, you have to use logical reasoning--not just guessing or biased-reasoning. Explore in a multi-faceted approach.

And yes, physical addiction is a scientific fact, which has been observed in human (and other animal) behavior so many times that it's become obvious, although there is of course more to the story than what you can read about right now, and what the general public/general scientific community believes.
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Aytundra
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Re: Is physical addiction a scientific fact?

Post by Aytundra »

Yngve wrote:How has physical addiction been studied? Studies using people eating a diet excluding foods which work the same way as so-called addictive drugs? That study doesn't exist. Or have they been using the non-scientific method doing un-controlled experiments, so that they can present whichever lies they want? Even this BDNF study would be impossible when you take into account the substances in food which also attach to dopamine receptors. Is it really fake, or am I missing something?
I guess your main question is on experimental design.
How do we know that something else did not interact? or that there is a confounding variable?

n = rats
0 = no alcohol
1 = alcohol

n + 0 = nothing happens
n + 1 = "something" happens

n = a + b + c + d + e + f + g + h + i + j + k + l + m + n + o + p + q + r

if all n, in both n + 0 and n + 1 experiments, use exact same amounts of a + b + c + d + e + f + g + h + i + j + k + l + m + n + o + p + q + r,
then we can compare the experiments n + 0 and n + 1 fairly,
and we can conclude that any response to 1 equals 1 cause that "something" to happen.

Your question is:
But what if n varies? would there be interactions with the experiments based on some differences in factors within n:
n1 = a + b + c + d + e + f + g + h + i + j + k + l + m + n + 100g of opioid peptides in foods + p + q + r
n2 = a + b + c + d + e + f + g + h + i + j + k + l + m + n + 1000g of opioid peptides in foods + p + q + r
n3 = a + b + c + d + e + f + g + h + i + j + k + l + m + n + 0g of opioid peptides in foods + p + q + r

Answer:
If you suspect "o" to be a factor, ( Or any other factors like: "b" = beta-carbolines, "c" = casomorphin ...)
To determine if that "o" factor affects the experiment in question, you will have to design an experiment with enough data points* collected on different variations of "o" (i.e. 0g, 100g, 1000g...), then do an analysis of varience comparing variations of "o" and their reactions to + 0 or + 1, and then see if "o" is "correlated"** with + 1.
**{Please keep in mind: Correlation is not causation!}

*data points = you may need to recruit "many many" subjects; it gets harder if n = humans because there are many factors a,b,c,d,e,f,g... that you have to keep constant such as a = age, g = genes, h = habitat, which are easier with animals. Plus you may also want to see if a, g, and h varies too. What if age affects alcohol addiction, what if genes affect alcohol, what if the habitat your social surroundings permit such addiction... etc. It then becomes a lot of variations and variance that could be analyzed.
A tundra where will we be without trees? Thannnks!
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