Asked – Answered:
Published: October 6, 1981
Q. Why is toothpaste sweet and what is it sweetened with?
A. In order for toothpaste to be effective, it must be used regularly. Research has indicated that a sweet taste encourages the regular use of toothpaste.

Specific flavors have been found to appeal to certain groups of the population. A sweet combination of flavors seems to be the most appealing. Sugar, however, is not used as a sweetener in toothpaste. Most manufacturers use an artificial sweetener, usually saccharin.

I started smoking when I was fifteen years old. Couldn’t inhale regular without hacking, so tried clove cigarettes. Bing bing bing!

There’s a reason they’re flavored. The clove helps suppress the gag reflex. The taste helps attract young new smokers.

No more.

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act was introduced in the US Congress and signed into law by President Obama, giving the FDA significantly more regulatory power over tobacco; one of the provisions in the law includes a ban on the use of flavors in tobacco, other than menthol. As of today, flavored cigarettes are outlawed in the US.

A good step, but I believe we can all bring up the topic of health costs to our friends who still smoke. There’s no upside. Smoking kills. Shaves life off the body.

Change begins. – Brad

As important as the headline, is that this study is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse – a gov body that’s not interested in the stock price of anyone.

It’s good research and encouraging how Rx might help with cravings. Keep an eye out! – Brad











CHICAGO (AP) —
Vaccine-like shots to keep cocaine abusers from getting high also helped them fight their addiction in the first successful rigorous study of this approach to treating illicit drug use

The shots didn’t work perfectly, but the researchers say their limited success is promising enough to suggest the intriguing vaccine approach could be widely used to treat addiction within several years.

“It is such an important study. It clearly demonstrates … that it is possible to generate vaccine that could interfere with cocaine actions in the brain,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funded the study.

The results come just days after that government agency announced plans for the first late-stage study of an experimental nicotine vaccine designed to help people quit smoking. The NicVAX vaccine has been fast-tracked by the Food and Drug Administration, and the research will be paid for with federal stimulus money.

The cocaine and nicotine vaccines both use the same approach, stimulating the immune system to produce antibodies that attach to molecules of the drugs and block them from reaching the brain.

In the new study, cocaine-fighting antibodies helped prevent users from getting a euphoric high and led nearly 40% of them to substantially cut back or stop cocaine use at least temporarily.

With more than 2 million cocaine abusers nationwide and no federally approved treatment, the results “are good enough — better than having nothing,” said lead author Dr. Thomas Kosten of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He developed the vaccine used in the study.

The study appears in October’s Archives of General Psychiatry, released Monday.

Volkow said the research exemplifies a “transformative” perspective on drug addiction.

“By targeting it as a medical disease as opposed to a moral dilemma, we’re likely to come up with solutions that have a much longer impact,” she said.

The research involved 115 cocaine abusers also addicted to heroin who sought methadone treatment at a New Haven, Connecticut clinic. Methadone treats heroin addiction, not cocaine, but it requires repeat clinic visits. That made it easier for the researchers to work with and track the cocaine abusers, Kosten said.

Over 12 weeks, nearly all participants got five shots of cocaine vaccine or a dummy substance. They were followed for an additional 12 weeks. All participants also attended weekly relapse-prevention therapy sessions, had their blood tested for antibodies and their urine tested for cocaine and heroin.

Overall, 21 vaccine patients — 38% — developed cocaine antibody levels high enough to prevent a cocaine high. In this group, 53% stopped using cocaine more than half the time during the study, versus 23% of those with lower antibody levels.

Despite the limited success, the results are exciting and show that the vaccine approach is a good one, said Dr. Kyle Kampman, a University of Pennsylvania addiction researcher who was not involved in the study.

photo: simone martin

Here I am, at 43 years old. Wow. When my dad was 43 it seemed so old to my young eyes. “Gosh, but you’re old…” I can hear myself telling my pop.

So here I stand. Recovered and learning and helping and growing in life. What a blessed life it is. Hooked no more.

Since that day my friends said STOP – YOU NEED HELP, so much has changed. I’ve gained, and lost. I’ve struggled and triumphed. I’ve quit smoking. I’ve learned to eat right. I got my teeth fixed. I went back to school. Learned how to be an honest man; how to quit lying. Changed alot.

I became a Board-Registered Interventionist and built a vibrant private practice unlike any other in the world. I have helped folks get better and heal in my private and public life.

I got married! I have a blended family – with three pooches and lots of barking depending on the moment. I have worked with thousands of people, including some for The Dr. Oz Show and The Oprah Winfrey Show. My work has helped to begin a shift to the very paradigm of change, and how it happens.

Fine, fine, fine.

I have a book that comes out in a couple months now as a lead title from St. Martin’s Press. Amazing, all of it. Because, back during that summer of 2002 I had given up and given in to the fact that my addictions would kill me. I had tried to stop, but always restarted the things that were killing me day by day. Didn’t know when, but I knew I would not survive much longer on that path. The alcohol, meth, xanax and cigarettes. The rage and pain and blame and shame. Carrying it all around like a sack of dead chickens.

But then change began and life got better. In centimeters at times, progress was made. By yards at still other times, life got better and from the ashes of a broken, defeated, addicted life came wholeness and good.

So be encouraged. To moms, and dads and sisters and wives: Change begins. People recover. And you can help them get there.

Throw out the old lies about hitting bottom, toss away the myths that your loved one has to want to change. When you’re addicted, sometimes all you know is that you want the drug. There is strength in numbers as we step in to interrupt the behavior, the addiction, the chaos and offer a loving change plan.

This is my 2009 count down. It’s been a banner one. Really good. Great even. I’m not the lucky one – you are too. As you step out in faith to create change in your defeat and hopelessness, we’ll do this together.

Onward,
Brad

From new research on the use of External Pharma Accountability Tools (EPAT – how I refer to them…love a good acronym!) in changing behavior. In this case, around smoking. Read it. It’s important and right:

MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin tobacco researchers said that they have encouraging news for smokers trying to quit.

The Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention recently released the findings of a major study that followed smokers in Madison and Milwaukee. The study participants were given five different kinds of treatments to see which worked the best to help smokers quit.

“What we found was the highest abstinence rates — or the people who were the most able to quit — were the people who got the combination of the nicotine patch and the nicotine lozenge,” said Dr. Megan Piper. “We’re really excited because 40 percent of the people in that group were able to quit for six months.”

Piper said the study also showed the importance of counseling. She said smokers who really want to quit need support to do it.

It arrived yesterday by messenger from my publisher – a box. A cardboard box, with my name on the label, and a word written on the front in felt-tip pen: BOOKS.

My books. In hardcover. Like the ones that will hit the bookstore shelves in January and ship from online retailers December 22. It’s beautiful. I opened the box up and the fam huddled around the box. Scott, and Oliver, and Bandit. And the books. Was a pretty cool feeling I must say holding that pretty red book in my hands for the very first time. I ran up to have lunch with my friend Dean Sicoli and handed him one. “Send it to me! I want you to write something in it.”

Cool!

I gave the first inscribed copy of HOW TO CHANGE SOMEONE YOU LOVE to Cathay Che. At Cafe Grumpy. It was anything but.

So, cannot wait to hit the road, Jack, and inscribe one for you and yours.

Here’s to new chapters, and books and such. Powerful punch.

x
Brad

Intervention Zone
Dateline: NEW YEAR 2010


I was on a plane, heading home in the cold for some R&R before the busy season in the intervention world. The holidays bring folks together – and with that come the reminders that:

• Things are bad
• Things are worse than remembered
• Things need change

Folks call us, with questions on how what we do is different than “as seen on TV?”

We get the friends and family ready to invite the identified loved one to a Family Meeting. This invitation makes for an ambush free zone. It encourages love and honesty by practicing love and honesty.

We help you help them – and begin radical change in the life of someone who oftentimes is dying for it. Let us show you how.

- Brad Lamm, BR-I
Board-Registered Interventionist

December 30th, 2009


She said she was surprised that she didn’t remember anything from the night before. Where her clothes went. Who was in her home; her bed. She told the police she wasn’t even sure she had sex with the man who had been found in her car, in a ditch about a mile from her home. The video that showed up in the in-box of her iPhone was evidence now of what had happened. She picked up the phone, hands trembling and dialed her parents. “I’m in a spot,” she told them, crying.

Her father rushed to her house, and then dad called me. Mom was at work so joined us on a conference call. Mom said it was like God had spared her daughter something worse, and perhaps this was their wake-up call, their SOS. I agreed.

Blackout behavior means you get loaded, and the recorder turns off. It’s like it didn’t happen…except it did for this young woman, her name is Val, like it does for so many of my clients – myself included. I used to wake up and wonder, what happened? Who happened? And what to do now!?

If someone you love struggles with alcohol or drugs, or other junk that’s gumming up their ability to live life, click around and read up on what we do and how we do it.

You needn’t wait for the next crisis or SOS.

That moment of clarity when you know what you know – that it’s out of control and something’s gotta be done – is the moment from which loving, appropriate action can begin.

I’m talking about no less than helping you help your loved one accept help and begin change. This is what I share about in my book “How to Change Someone You Love” and already I’ve had calls from folks who have read the book, and helped someone they love. Amazing!

2009 nearly behind us. 2010 straight ahead. Step out in faith. Lead with love. Let us show you how.

- Brad Lamm, BR-I

Board-Registered Interventionist
www.InterventionSpecialists.org
www.BradLamm.com

January 17th, 2010

Click here for my latest column with The Dr. Oz Show:

http://doctoroz.com/blog/brad-lamm-br-i/love-drug

January 29th, 2010

Click here for my latest column:

http://doctoroz.com/blog/brad-lamm-br-i/your-need-feed