WEDNESDAY, Nov. 27, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Exposure to natural substances with psychoactive effects — including marijuana, kratom, magic mushrooms and nutmeg — triggered more than 67,300 calls to U.S. Poison Control Centers over nearly two decades. That’s an average of 3,743 calls a year between January 2000 and DecemberContinue Reading

FRIDAY, May 17, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Java junkies can sniff out even tiny amounts of coffee, and the more they drink, the better they can smell it, British researchers say. It’s a discovery with powerful implications for treating people addicted to substances with a distinct smell. “The higher theContinue Reading

SUNDAY, Dec. 2, 2018 (HealthDay News) — A marijuana-derived drug that helps control epileptic seizures appears to become less effective over time in some patients, a new Israeli study reports. Cannabidiol (CBD) liquid has been proven effective against seizures, but about one-third of patients develop tolerance that blunts the drug’sContinue Reading

THURSDAY, Aug. 30, 2018 (HealthDay News) — Experiments in mice have shown that an implanted electronic device in the brain can detect — and deliver drugs to stop — impending epileptic seizures. Potentially, a similar device might help people with epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease and brain tumors who have failed standardContinue Reading

FRIDAY, July 6, 2018 (HealthDay News) — Doctors and pain specialists have been turning to anticonvulsive drugs for treatment of lower back pain more often over the past decade. There’s just one problem — these drugs don’t really help. A series of clinical trials have shown that anticonvulsants are noContinue Reading

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 29, 2017 (HealthDay News) — A new treatment that aims electrical pulses at irritated nerves around the spinal cord appears effective at relieving chronic lower back pain and sciatica, a preliminary study suggests. The minimally invasive procedure, called image-guided pulsed radiofrequency, eased lingering pain in 80 percent ofContinue Reading