Stimulant Drugs of Abuse and Cardiac Arrhythmias

Nonmedical use of prescription and nonprescription drugs is a worldwide epidemic, rapidly growing in magnitude with deaths because of overdose and chronic use. A vast majority of these drugs are stimulants that have various effects on the cardiovascular system including the cardiac rhythm. Drugs, like cocaine and methamphetamine, have measured effects on the conduction system and through several direct and indirect pathways, utilizing multiple second messenger systems, change the structural and electrical substrate of the heart, thereby promoting cardiac dysrhythmias. Substituted amphetamines and cocaine affect the expression and activation kinetics of multiple ion channels and calcium signaling proteins resulting in EKG changes, and atrial and ventricular brady and tachyarrhythmias. Preexisting conditions cause substrate changes in the heart, which decrease the threshold for such drug-induced cardiac arrhythmias. The treatment of cardiac arrhythmias in patients who take drugs of abuse may be specialized and will require an understanding of the unique underlying mechanisms and necessitates a multidisciplinary approach. The use of primary or secondary prevention defibrillators in drug abusers with chronic systolic heart failure is both sensitive and controversial. This review provides a broad overview of cardiac arrhythmias associated with stimulant substance abuse and their management.

2C-x and DOx hallucinogens: a systematic review

The drug market has seen a significant global expansion in the last decades. The synthetic designer drugs belonging to the class of amphetamines and derived phenylethylamines have experienced the greatest spread in the drug market for abuse. As phenylethylamines are organic compounds that stimulate the central nervous system of humans, many are abused as recreational drugs. A large array of substituted amphetamines can be easily synthetized by replacing one or more hydrogen atoms in the structure of phenylethylamine. Among these, the most dangerous for human health are those analogues or homologues that have hallucinogenic effects (besides the stimulant pharmacological activity), such as those belonging to the 2C-x and DOx classes of amphetamines. This review describes the physico-chemical and spectral properties of the most representative compounds of the two classes.

Review on Overview of Substance Abuse among Medical Practitioners

Substance Misuse, also known as substance abuse, is a disease marked by a harmful habit of using illicit or legal substances or medications such as alcohol, heroin, cocaine, or substituted amphetamines such as methamphetamine and MDMA. Drug abuse deeply impact physician's brain and behavior such that they are unable to control the use of drug to the point that it interferes with the ability to function which may harm patients and cause medical errors. The fact is, physicians can easily access various opioids and substituted amphetamines. This article review is the examination of existing published research articles on substance abuse among health care workers. This literature was reviewed using PubMed and google scholar search criteria set so that all the article could be found in English language along with certain keywords such as Health care workers, addiction, opioids, drug abuse. I gone through various articles, of which 10 articles related to study. It was found that substance abuse in medical workers were greater than general people and keeps increasing at an alarming rate. The most favored drug by health care workers is alcohol, the incidence of opioids and some nonopioids anesthetic agent abuse. Especially propofol, most commonly used by anesthetic department and emergency medicine. There is wide difference between general public and health care workers regarding drug abuse. Although Health care workers had a better prognosis but 10%-15% of health care are workers susceptible to drug violence at some point in their lives.