Compulsion And N-acetylcysteine

Compulsion And N-acetylcysteine

Help for Obsessive Hair-Pulling
Dr. Jon Grant has found positive results in an antioxidant that may
help in a hairy tug-of-war.


March 12, 2010

http :// www .baltimoresun,com /health/sns-health-hair-pulling-supplement,0,2835855.story

Most everyone plays mindlessly with their hair from time to time. But
for some people it becomes such an uncontrollable compulsion that they
end up with bald patches or eyebrows plucked bare.

If it's any comfort, animals too suffer from "grooming compulsions."

Though the behavior is documented in the Bible and ancient medical
texts, treatment for hair-pulling has not been studied much. But now a
University of Minnesota researcher might have found an answer in a
common, over-the-counter nutritional supplement that costs about $15
for 100 pills.

Better yet, his breakthrough could hold promise for a whole range of
common obsessive behaviors, from nail-biting to hand-washing.

Dr. Jon Grant, a psychiatrist who specializes in addictive and
compulsive behaviors, found that an antioxidant called N-
acetylcysteine (NAC) helped about half of the hair-pullers in his
study. Some engaged the behavior less often, and some quit altogether.

It's not a cure-all, Grant said, because it didn't work in the other
half of his subjects. Still, the study, published Monday in the
Archives of General Psychiatry, is important because it shows for the
first time that reducing a certain chemical in the brain also eases an
uncontrollable behavioral obsession.

Extreme hair-pulling is relatively uncommon compared to other grooming
compulsions such as nail-biting, he said, but it occurs in all
cultures and in animals.

"Dogs lick themselves to the point of hair loss," he said. "Parrots
pull out all their feathers."

Some studies have shown that anywhere from 1 to 4 percent of people
engage in hair-pulling at some point in their lives, more often in
women than men. Like most obsessive behaviors, it's probably genetic.
But the people who suffer from it often suffer in silence and shame,
Grant said.

The most extreme cases, he said, "have difficulty hiding the bald
spots," he said. "They wear false eyelashes or pencil in their
eyebrows. Over time it's led them to not date, or get married, or
socialize."

One of the women in his study picked at her hair for six or seven
hours a day. She asked to be identified only by her first name,
Jacqueline, because she didn't want others to know her problem. She
picked her hair during meetings at work, and then after dinner she'd
sit for hours picking split ends. She didn't get bald, but her hair
became noticeably thinner.

"I felt guilty because I couldn't stop," she said. "I wasn't living my
life."

The only current treatments for obsessive behaviors are
antidepressants, which don't work well, and counseling, which doesn't
always work.

For some time researchers have hypothesized that the brain chemical
glutamate might be a cause because it's linked to excitation, reward
and motivation. It's part of the vicious brain-chemistry cycle in
addiction. Grant decided to try NAC, an amino acid that does not come
in any kind of food, because it's known to suppress glutamate. He
decided to focus on hair pickers because "it was a greatly under-
served population of people."

He found 50 obsessive hair pickers. Half got a sham drug, half got NAC
- 2,400 milligrams a day. After three months, 56 percent of those on
the drug showed noticeable improvement compared to 16 percent on the
placebo.

After taking the drug for three weeks, Jacqueline stopped hair picking
almost altogether. She recognized she was getting the real therapy,
not the placebo. "There is no way that my mind is powerful enough to
stop something like that," she said. "I couldn't believe it."

There is now a much larger study of NAC headed by researchers at Yale
University to see if it works on a broader range of obsessive
behaviors.

Grant said he believes some might be helped and others won't because
of differences in how people metabolize the chemical.

But one obsessive nail-biter in his office who was initially a skeptic
is now a convert.

"He was my biggest critic, but after two-and-a-half months he actually
had nails again," Grant said.
Copyright © 2010, HealthKey
------

Health food supplement may curb compulsive hair pulling
Published:
Monday, July 6, 2009 - 15:44 in Health & Medicine
University of Minnesota Medical School researchers have discovered
that a common anti-oxidant, widely available as a health food
supplement, may help stop the urges of those with trichotillomania, a
disorder characterized by compulsive hair-pulling.
Fifty people enrolled in a double-blind 12 week study; half were
given
N-Acetylcysteine, an amino acid commonly found in health food
supplements.
The average age of patients who enrolled was about 34, and most
started pulling hair compulsively by the age of 12.
Patients were given 1,200 mg of N-Acetylcysteine every day for six
weeks.
For the following six weeks, the dosage was increased to 2,400 mg per
day.
After nine weeks, those on supplement had significantly reduced hair-
pulling.
By the end of the 12 week study, 56 percent reported feeling much or
very much improved, while only 16 percent on the placebo reported
less
pulling.


The study is published in the July, 2009 issue of the Archives of
General Psychiatry.


"Trichotillomania is compulsive in the sense that people can't
control
it.
People feel unable to stop the behavior even though they know it is
causing negative consequences," said Jon Grant, M.D., J.D., a
University of Minnesota associate professor of psychiatry and
principal investigator of the study.
"Some people don't even know they are doing it."


Those who have trichotillomania compulsively or habitually pull their
hair to the point of noticeable loss.
It is most commonly associated with women, but men can also be
affected, and pulling can occur anywhere on the body.
Grant believes 2 to 4 percent of the general population is impacted
by
trichotillomania on some level.


"These are people who have tried all kinds of things that have never
worked," Grant said.
"The reality is that if you pull hair and it is on a noticeable part
of the body, people are really disabled by this.
It's not easy to go out in public if people are noticing your bald
spots.
Self esteem is a huge problem. This supplement may offer hope."


The study is significant on another level because it's one of the
first studies of compulsive behaviors to look at lowering levels of
glutamate – a chemical that triggers excitement – in the brain to
curb
harmful behavior rather than serotonin, a naturally occurring
chemical
most commonly linked to compulsive behavior.
This supplement affects levels of glutamate in a specific area of the
brain, making it easier for patients to put the breaks on their
harmful behavior.


For that reason, Grant believes glutamate modulators such as N-
Acetylcysteine may be applicable to other disorders, addictions, and
compulsive behaviors.


Who loves ya.
Tom


Jesus Was A Vegetarian!
http :// tinyurl,com /634q5a


Man Is A Herbivore!
http :// tinyurl,com /4rq595


DEAD PEOPLE WALKING
http :// tinyurl,com /zk9fk

Re: SPAM from

a Spamming Canuck Dicksucker

-- deleted messages --

Re: Proof Rusty suffers for a debilitative case of Obcessive Compulsive Disorder

And he's a Spamming Canuck Cocksucker

Re: Proof Rusty suffers for a debilitative case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

On Mar 13, 11:41 am, Ken <flakey...@aol,com > wrote:
> And he's a Spamming Canuck Cocksucker

misspelling corrected

-- deleted messages --

Re: Proof Rusty suffers for a debilitative case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

And he's a Spamming Canuck Cocksucker

-- deleted messages --

Re: Mindless X-Posted Bullcrap from a OCD suffering

Spamming Canuck Cocksucker

-- deleted messages --

Re: SPAM from a Dicksucking Canuck

Cocksucker

-- deleted messages --

-- deleted messages --

Re: More Worthless CCPed Bullcrap from a Canuck Cocksucker

Spam

Re: More CCPed BS from a Dicksucking

Worthless Canuck Spammer