Cocaine is a strongly addictive drug. It inhibits the brain from discarding the chemical dopamine, which is related to emotions, rewards, and motivation. This creates short-term euphoria. Research also shows that cocaine meddles with the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the brain. This is your mid-brain chiefly featuring dopaminergic, GABA, and glutamate neurons.
Do you know long-term cocaine use can restructure your brain?
Perhaps that’s why cocaine addiction requires a thorough drug rehab program.
Cocaine leads to faster brain aging
In a healthy individual, the brain undergoes changes naturally. Gray matter begins to decline with age. A healthy brain takes decades to age, maybe in the 60th or 70th year of an individual’s life.
However, a study conducted at the University of Cambridge provides shocking revelations. As per the study, an average healthy brain loses 1.69 milliliters of gray matter every year. But, in a current cocaine addict or a person who used cocaine in the past, gray matter lost was an average of 3.08 milliliters every year.
That’s one of the reasons cocaine addicts, according to Utah drug rehab specialists, suffer from impaired cognitive functions.
Cocaine can make brain cells cannibalize!
A study done on mice by John Hopkins University reveals that cocaine use may make cells of the brain cannibalize themselves. In its description, the study talks about cocaine-triggered autophagy in neurons. This is the phenomenon of “cells eating themselves from inside out.”
Mice are borne out of mothers fed with cocaine during pregnancy also showed this phenomenon, despite the mice not abusing cocaine themselves.
Recipe for self-destruction
Cocaine might be a famous drug at parties and on the streets. Youngsters think it is trendy to snort crack. However, they fail to realize how they are inviting serious aging on themselves.
Wish to drop off cocaine from your life? Please dial the addiction hotline immediately before your brain cells show cannibalism!
Dangers of prolonged cocaine use on heart
Prolonged cocaine use produces adverse effects on almost all body functions, especially the cardiovascular system, reveals research.
It can lead to:
- Disturbed cardiac rhythm
- Inflamed heart muscles
- Reduction in heart’s ability to contract
- Aortic ruptures
- Heart attack
Other dangers
- Adverse effects on the liver and kidneys
- Renal failure (extreme cases)
- Severe hypertension
- Acute coronary syndrome
- Hyperthermia (the condition in which body temperature stays abnormally high)
- Malnutrition because binge use suppresses hunger
- Stomach ulcers and tears, as cocaine decreases the flow of blood in the gastrointestinal tract
- Damage to nasal cavity due to regular snorting, leading to chronic runny nose, nosebleeds, and losing the sense of smell
- Stroke
- Seizure
If you or your loved one is suffering from any of the above cocaine-related health conditions, waste no more time. Search for “drug rehab near me”. It’s high time for de-addiction.
Cocaine and “crack lung”
Regular smoking of cocaine damages lung sacs. Doctors call it “crack lung.” It is characterized by fever, labored breathing, blood in cough, and respiratory failure.
Despite the horrendous effects cocaine produces on the body, millions of people snort, smoke, or inject cocaine. Maybe they are not aware or maybe they don’t care. Those who do can’t stop using it. Rehab program is the best place for cocaine withdrawal treatment.
Visit https://www.daylightdetox.com/addiction/cocaine-addiction/ for more information.