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One of the questions that we often receive is to
explain the difference between detox and rehab.
Detox is the process of helping people safely stop
taking drugs or drinking alcohol. Rehab is the
process of helping people address and handle the
reasons that they were addicted to a drug or
alcohol. Unlike rehabs which often use saunas as
part of their program, Novus does not use a sauna.
However, we will recommend
the sauna programs offered by others to our patients
because these programs will remove all remaining
toxins from
the body.
Detox is the first step of rehab because the person
has to be withdrawn from the drugs or alcohol before
the rehab process can commence. In many cases it
is proper to do the detox at the rehab facility
because there is no real medical risk. In other cases,
there is a serious medical risk if a person stops taking
the drug or drinking alcohol.
Ironically, most illegal drugs like cocaine, heroin,
crack and meth can be withdrawn from at the rehab
facility with little or no medical risk. However, if a
person has been taking certain types of prescription
drugs for a long time or is not just a compulsive binge
drinker of alcohol but someone who actually gets
the “shakes” if they don’t have a drink when they
get up in the morning, the established medical
protocol requires these people to only detox under
medical supervision.
The detox process where the person sees a doctor
on an outpatient basis once or twice a week often
takes many weeks. In our inpatient facility, we can
safely get people off most
prescription drugs in one to two weeks. In
addition, there are many people who are
not “addicted” to prescription drugs in the usual
sense and don’t need rehab but do want to safely
and sanely withdraw from these drugs. Novus is the
perfect place for them.
If you have any questions about the difference
between detox and rehab or about Novus, please
email us at info@novusdetox.com or call us at
800/505-6604.
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The April 10, 2002 issue of JAMA, Vol. 287 No. 14,
reported on a study conducted to determine the
efficacy of St. John's Wort (Hypericum perforatum) in
major depressive disorder. The study was a double
blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial conducted
in 12 academic and community psychiatric research
clinics in the United States. Patients were randomly
assigned to receive H perforatum, placebo, or
sertraline (Zoloft - as an active comparator) for 8
weeks. Based on clinical response, the daily dose of
H perforatum could range from 900 to 1500 mg and
that of sertraline from 50 to 100 mg. Responders at
week 8 could continue blinded treatment for another
18 weeks.
The findings of the study reported that "Full response
occurred in 31.9% of the placebo-treated patients vs
23.9% of the (St. John's Wort) H perforatum-treated
patients and 24.8% of (Zoloft) sertraline-treated
patients."
However, the conclusion of the study failed to
mention that Zoloft was used in the study, and
simply stated that St. John's Wort was ineffective.
In a communication to several FDA officials,
the
Alliance for Human Research Protection (AHRP)
questioned the motives behind the researchers'
failure to mention in the conclusion that not only was
Zoloft part of the trial, but was also found to be less
effective than the placebo - and only slightly more
effective than St. John's Wort.
According to the AHRP, this omission in the
conclusion is especially suspect since the authors of
the study also acknowledged that "An increasing
number of studies have failed to show a difference
between active antidepressants and placebo. Many
of the presumed factors underlying this phenomenon
were carefully attended to in this study, e.g.,
adherence to quality control by rater training,
treatment adherence monitoring, inclusion of
experienced investigators, and carefully defined entry
criteria. Despite all of this, Zoloft failed to separate
from placebo on the 2 primary outcome measures."
Seattle psychiatrist Arif Khan, who has studied the
placebo effect in trials submitted to the FDA,
conducted an analysis of 96 antidepressant trials
between 1979 and 1996. He analyzed trials that
were made public in the medical literature, which
tend to show positive results, and those that were
not. The results showed that in 52 percent of
the studies, the effect of the antidepressant could
not be distinguished from that of the placebo. Khan
said the makers of Prozac had to run five trials to
obtain two that were positive, and the makers of
Paxil and Zoloft had to run even more.
Additionally, it has been found that the placebos
affect parts of the brain in a manner similar to
selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).
Andrew Leuchter, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA,
published a study in the American Journal of
Psychiatry (January 2002) in which he tracked some
of the brain changes associated with drugs such as
Prozac and Effexor. When Leuchter compared the
brain changes on placebos, he found that many of
the patients had changes in the same parts of the
brain that are thought to control important facets of
mood.
Thomas Laughren, who heads the group of scientists
at the FDA that evaluates these drugs, recently
commented on these issues in the article entitled
"Against Depression, a Sugar Pill Is Hard to Beat",
published in the Washington Post on May 7, 2002. "It
speaks to the difficulty we have in classifying and
identifying the disorders we deal with," said Mr.
Laughren. "Psychiatric diagnosis is descriptive. We
don't really understand psychiatric disorders at a
biological level."
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Sincerely,
The Novus Team
Novus Medical Detox Centers, LLC
email:
e.mitchell@sbcglobal.net
phone:
1-800-505-6604
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