Anti-Depressants Used Against StarCraft Addiction 258
dotarray writes "Hope may be at hand for the poor souls addicted to video games. Recent research from South Korea has shown that a common anti-depressant, Bupropion (sold as Welbutrin, Zyban and Voxra) can 'decrease craving for Internet game play' as well as the brain activity triggered by video game cues. This is a drug often used to help quit smoking, to lose weight or to recover from drug addiction, in addition to typical anti-depressant and anti-anxiety uses. And, with Korean scientists already on-board, how better to test this theory than to gather up a bunch of StarCraft players?"
Re:Anti-Depressants to lose weight (Score:1, Interesting)
oh yeah, wellbutrin does it.
the thing is, most ADs make you a fat fucker, (the atypical AD) wellbutrin stops your appetite, i mean if you still eat you dont magically loose weight ofc.
ive taken wellbutrin for like 1.5 years, my favorite AD so far, now i moved on to ritalin. diagnosed with ADD finally, the thing is, since wellbutrin worked so good for me, that helped in the diagnosis, wellbutrin does similar things like ritalin or similar substances.
Anti-depressants and eating habits (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been on Zoloft twice. The first time, I gained quite a bit of weight. Serotonin plays a major role in appetite regulation. In my experience, that means the feelings of hunger and satiety change, and if you don't adapt to these changes, you might just end up eating a lot more! My eating habits were poor, and I indulged these habits a lot more without the normal feelings to guide me. I never adapted, and I blamed Zoloft for the weight gain.
Back on Zoloft, I've lost weight. About a year before starting Zoloft, I changed my diet completely and started exercising, and immediately began losing weight. While on Zoloft, that has continued (or perhaps accelerated a bit). Once again, my sense of hunger is a bit off, but with good eating habits in place, the only real difference is forgetting to eat sometimes.
Of course, I can't generalize from my experience to everyone. But I'd still suggest working on your eating habits before going on an anti-depressant, simply because it is helpful outside that context, as well :-)
Re:Using drugs for addiction (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It goes both ways. (Score:3, Interesting)
Something like sleeping for 10 hours, trying to get yourself to do something... finally giving up and just going back to sleep for 6 hours? ... maybe I should do something about this.
More effective ideas (vitamin D, whole foods, etc) (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml [vitamindcouncil.org]
http://www.alternativeratreatments.com/eat-to-live.html [alternativ...tments.com]
http://www.bluezones.com/makeover-about [bluezones.com]
http://books.google.com/books?id=bCuC2H-6k_8C [google.com]
http://books.google.com/books?id=RKZreNYKNHQC [google.com]
Re:How long afterwards does it last? (Score:3, Interesting)
Weirdly enough, in 1975 I suffered from real, honest-to-God clinical depression for over a year, and then went on to become (gasp!) a Scientologist. In some ways they did me more good than the shrinks at the VA hospital did, but then they (the Scientologists) started to get weird ... I mean really weird.
Years before Hubbard's death in 1986, the "church" was exhibiting increasing signs of paranoia and absolutism — if you weren't 100% in agreement with every tiny thing that Hubbard had ever muttered, then you were a PTS (Potential Trouble Source) or even an SP (Suppressive Person: CoS equivalent of Spawn of Satan). This was very ironic because when I had first read Book One (ie. Dianetics - Modern Science of Mental Health) I was very impressed that there was an appendix that had an article by the inimitable Joseph Campbell that made a compelling argument against Proof By Authority. This was echoed in the "church" at that time by the catch phrase: "if it isn't true for you then it isn't true." Which was an idea that had real appeal for me right up to the point where it morphed into "if it's true for LRH then it's true for you, or else you are an SP." At sometime in the 70's/early 80's they dropped that particular appendix from DMSMH.
So I finally left the CoS in 1982 and, because even though I tried to leave quietly their "you can never leave us" attitude pissed me off, I even threatened to sue and got a fair percentage of my money back. (Try that nowadays!)
What's my point?
On a weird side note: Back in Palo Alto I actually knew Mimi Rogers (whose father, Phil Spickler, was the director of the Palo Alto Mission) when she was still married to Jim Rogers. This was several years before she became the first Mrs. Tom Cruise.
Video Game Addiction? (Score:3, Interesting)
The media and politicians really seem to like this idea, so it's a decent way to get funding for your study -- but is it really a problem we should be worried about? Video game playing is a form of recreation. Plenty of people spend more than 30 hours a week doing something they love, and very few of them are ever referred to as "addictions". We never talk about people being "addicted" to Golf because they go out and play Golf twice a week and watch a bit of Golf on TV in other free moments. The amount of time you spend on a form of recreation can suddenly make the difference between a perfectly healthy past-time and an "addiction". What about youths "addicted" to basketball? Hell, what about a passive activity that's arguably even more dangers: addicted to television?
I'm not saying that some people don't spend an unhealthy amount of time playing video games and then obsess about them when they're not playing. But unlike proper drug addictions, these people are not ruining their lives in pursuit of their hobby. They aren't happy, well-adjusted individuals who "everybody really liked until the video games got him". They are people who are unhappy with almost every aspect of their life, and find the enjoyment in video games to be the only source of enjoyment they can look forward to. In short, "Video Game Addiction" is not a disease, its a symptom -- probably of depression. With that in mind, it does make sense that you could "treat" it with anti-depressants -- but should we really be focused on treating symptoms? Hell, it's not even really a symptom so much as it is a form of self-medication. I'm willing to bet that depressed individuals who develop video-gaming habits are probably much less likely to kill themselves. . .
Oh, I know there are stories in the Newspaper about marriages being "destroyed" by World of Warcraft or whatever, but I'm pretty sure that if you show me a person who withdrew into World of Warcraft to avoid his marriage, I can probably show you a marriage that wasn't particularly happy in the first place.