WesWELL

If you haven’t had the pleasure of watching the podcasts for the Midwest Teen Sex Show, now’s your chance. Their latest installment is on Sex, Drugs & Alcohol.

or view it here.

Worried that antibiotic resistance will make you vulnerable to all sorts of infections? It’s important to understand how drug resistance occurs before you start worrying your pretty little head about it. Read this from the New York Times…

 People can be forgiven for wondering what difference it makes how we kill microorganisms. After all, soap or bleach kills bacteria, and so does penicillin. So why does it matter exactly how you kill them?

It does matter, and the reason for the consequences of killing bacteria with penicillin or killing them with Ivory has to do with evolution. Furthermore, I suspect that part of the confusion in the mind of the public lies in the use of euphemisms like “develop” and “change through time,” rather than what we really mean, which is evolve.

Bacteria don’t “develop” resistance, as if it were a muscle nurtured by going to a microbial gym. read full article…

Check out information about Infection Control at Wes.

From CNN…

Teenagers who use marijuana put themselves at higher risks for serious mental health problems, including worsening depression, schizophrenia, anxiety and suicide, according to a new White House report.

The report said more teens use marijuana than all other illegal drugs combined.

The goal is to “correct the blind spot we’ve had in our society that’s caused more young people to suffer,” Director of National Drug Control Policy John Walters said.

“The short message is: Marijuana’s not safe.”

Although the report from the Office of National Drug Control Policy notes that use of the drug among teenagers has dropped by 25 percent in the past seven years, it emphasizes that more teens use marijuana than all other illegal drugs combined.

That use can have serious consequences, according to the report. Teenagers who smoke marijuana to self-medicate can compound their depression, the report said.

read full article…
view video on report…

From WebMD…

One in four Americans shares prescription drugs with others — and opens a Pandora’s box of risk.

This suggestion of widespread drug sharing comes from a pilot study in which researchers interviewed 700 people in 10 U.S. cities. It’s the first study to take a broad look at what people say about “loaning” and “borrowing” prescription medications.

About 23% of the people interviewed loaned medicines, and about 27% borrowed them, find Richard C. Goldsworthy, PhD, of Academic Edge Inc. and colleagues.

“Whether this sharing is beneficial or detrimental depends on what is shared and for what reason,” Goldsworthy tells WebMD. “But we found a lot of situations where sharing can be detrimental — in ways we don’t always think about.”

read full article…

Wesleyan students…What observations, if any, have you made about prescription drug sharing on campus? Is it problematic or not? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

From Scientific American…

If you use cocaine and need a reason to quit—or one to avoid starting in the first place—think conservation. The national parks of Guatemala and other countries have become the preferred haven of drug traffickers who usurp protected areas and burn the forest to serve their own purposes and the demands of their customers, according to Roan McNab, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) country director for Guatemala.

In Guatemala, drug traffickers clear a new landing strip on average once every six months to avoid being caught. read full article…

Go Ask Alice!, Columbia University’s Health Q & A Internet Service, answers a question from a person who is curious about the effects of her prescribed Adderall on her sexual feelings and behavior.

Q: Dear Alice,

I am a teenage girl currently taking Adderall (20 mg) to treat my ADHD. My question: does taking this medication affect sexual wantings or behavior? I am supposed to start taking it at 7:00am so it will wear out at about 9:00 or 9:30pm. Since I go out later at night, my medicine is usually worn off before I engage in any kind of sexual activity. But sometimes on weekends I wake up late and have to take it at later times such as 12:00 or 1:00pm. Since then it will not wear off until after I go out, would being on Adderall affect my sexual behavior? I feel like I am less “horny” when on Adderall and sex is worse because of the lack of my desires. Does this have anything to do with my medicine or is it just a coincidence?

A: Dear Reader,

Kudos to you for recognizing that medications can sometimes have unanticipated side effects — your lack of sexual desire may not just be a coincidence. It’s important to talk with a health care professional about the specific effects of Adderall, especially if you are considering altering your medication regimen.

Adderall is an amphetamine used to treat ADHD. Amphetamines are stimulants that have been shown to help with the symptoms of ADHD. Adderall’s potential side effects include:

• Headache
• Diarrhea
• Constipation
• Loss of appetite
• Stomach pain
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Weight loss
• Diminished sex drive
• Impotence

As you can see, it’s possible that your medication is related to your lower sex drive. Taking your medication far in advance of sexual activity may help with your lack of desire. Would it be possible to wake up at your normal time on weekends to take the medication, and then go back to sleep? If this isn’t feasible, you can talk with your health care professional about other options. Don’t change your dose or skip a dose without discussing it with her/him; you don’t want to jeopardize your health.

Also consider other medications you may be taking or habits you may have on the weekends. For example, some women report lowered sex drive from hormonal birth control, some people have sexual side-effects from depression or anti-anxiety medications, and some people who use alcohol or other drugs can experience sexual side effects. If any of these factors play a role in your life, you may want to consider their impact in addition to the possible impacts of Adderall when speaking with a health care provider. Keeping a journal of when you take Adderall or any other medications or substances and when you experience lower sex drive may also help you pinpoint a pattern and make a plan of action.

Good luck figuring out what is impacting your sex drive. Remember, don’t stop taking any prescription medications without speaking with your health care provider first; withdrawal effects may be even less desireable than low sexual desire!

From the New York Times…

“I’ve grown up on medication,” my patient Julie told me recently. “I don’t have a sense of who I really am without it.”

At 31, she had been on one antidepressant or another nearly continuously since she was 14. There was little question that she had very serious depression and had survived several suicide attempts. In fact, she credited the medication with saving her life.

But now she was raising an equally fundamental question: how the drugs might have affected her psychological development and core identity. read full article…

Discussion Questions:
How do you see the use of legitimately prescribed drugs influencing one’s identity defvelopment?
Can one truly have a sense of who they are as an individual while under the influence of a drug?
How does this differ from illegal drugs or alcohol?

Let’s Talk About Drugs!  

This will be a very informal event, led by the Peer Health Advocates. We’ll be discussing drugs, alcohol, harm reduction, and the social climate at Wesleyan. We expect this to be a group conversation, not a lecture by the PHAs. You can ask or talk about drugs, what they can do, how not to hurt yourself while taking them, how to help your friends if they have a bad experience, and the fact that really, you don’t have to take any drugs or drink if you don’t want to. WesWELL’s mission is to equip you with accurate and useful information that can be used in your personal decision-making. Snacks will be served!

When: Friday, April 18 @ 2:30 pm
Where: Davison Health Center Solarium (2nd floor)

Inhalants are not a commonly used substance on college campuses. Research by the Core Institute indicates that in 2005,only 0.5% of over 33,000 college students reported using inhalants at least once in the 30 days prior to the survey. This compares to 73% for alcohol and 17% for marijuana.

Yet given the ease of access to perfectly legal substances that can be inhaled, it is a behavior that can carry over from junior high or high school, where “huffing” is more common.

 The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) offers these health hazards for inhalant use:

Although they differ in makeup, nearly all abused inhalants produce short-term effects similar to anesthetics, which act to slow down the body’s functions. When inhaled in sufficient concentrations, inhalants can cause intoxication, usually lasting only a few minutes.

However, sometimes users extend this effect for several hours by breathing in inhalants repeatedly. Initially, users may feel slightly stimulated. Repeated inhalations make them feel less inhibited and less in control. If use continues, users can lose consciousness.

Sniffing highly concentrated amounts of the chemicals in solvents or aerosol sprays can directly induce heart failure and death within minutes of a session of repeated inhalations. This syndrome, known as “sudden sniffing death,” can result from a single session of inhalant use by an otherwise healthy young person. Sudden sniffing death is particularly associated with the abuse of butane, propane, and chemicals in aerosols. read full article…

Discussion Questions:
What have you seen, if anything, around Wesleyan in regards to inhalant use? 
What concerns you about it…or not?  

From the New York Times…

Chopped pig pancreas may not sound appetizing. But most cystic fibrosis patients eat a refined version of it each breakfast, lunch and dinner — five large capsules a meal — to supply enzymes their bodies do not produce.

The pills are life-sustaining for most of the nearly 30,000 people in the United States with cystic fibrosis, a hereditary disease that attacks the lungs and digestive tract.

But partly because of the drug’s source there have been longstanding concerns about those capsules, according to Leslie Hendeles, a University of Florida professor of pharmacy and pediatrics who has studied them.

“What would happen if there were a virus, a pig virus, something analogous to mad cow disease?” Dr. Hendeles asked.

The recent recall of the Baxter International blood thinner heparin, which has been linked to 19 deaths and whose main ingredient comes from pig intestines, has raised public awareness that even in the age of sophisticated bioengineering, certain crucial medicines are still derived from animal parts. The concerns remain, even though, as it turned out, the heparin problem had nothing to do with the pigs.

A company called Scientific Protein Laboratories, which supplies the active ingredient in heparin to Baxter International, is also the supplier of much of the pig-derived pancreatic enzymes used by cystic fibrosis patients.

Medical and drug scientists have long worried about animal-derived drugs, but they also know that the search for synthetic alternatives has often ended in frustration.

read full article…