Conference focuses on problem gambling's effect on health

Oct. 27--WESTBROOK -- Gambling addiction, sometimes referred to as the "purest addiction" because it involves no ingestion of substances or chemicals, can be just as damaging to physical health as drug or alcohol addiction.

Perhaps surprisingly, society has been slow to acknowledge that fact.

Prior to 2000, little research on the connection between gambling addiction and physical health existed, Dr. Timothy Fong, a UCLA professor of psychiatry, said Tuesday during the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling's 12th annual conference.

The all-day event took place at Water's Edge Resort & Spa.

Fong, the conference's keynote speaker, told an audience of some 200 clinicians, problem gamblers, gaming regulators and industry executives that society still has a ways to go.

"It's a brain disease that affects the body," Fong said of gambling disorder. "If I had cancer, I could call in sick (to work) with pride, but not if I was struggling with gambling disorder. We need to get to where we can say, 'I'm struggling with gambling disorder and I need to take the week off.'"

Recent studies have linked gambling disorder to high rates of heart and liver disease, obesity, hypertension and insomnia.

Problem gamblers, defined as those unable to control the urge to gamble regardless of the consequences, tend to drink, smoke and avoid exercise. Many neglect their health and may lack access to health care.

Fong cited a Connecticut study that found that 62 percent of people who sought treatment for gambling addiction were smokers. Scientific evidence suggests, he said, that nicotine and gambling trigger the same "preferential release of dopamine," a brain chemical, and that smoking and gambling may "prime each other."

"Nicotine may raise the 'hedonic' value of gambling," he said.

Research conducted at UCLA found that problem gamblers were more than three times as likely to have sleeping problems as non-gamblers.

While walking around a California casino in the early-morning hours, Fong said he heard gamblers say, "Let me lose, so I can go to sleep."

Fong, co-director of the UCLA Gambling Studies Program, urged clinicians to be specific in prescribing exercise for patients with gambling disorder.

He recommended patients exercise three times a week for 90 minutes at a time and start addressing their diets by keeping a "food diary."

Overweight patients should be encouraged to lose a half-pound per week.

Similarly, he said, patients should document their sleep patterns as a first step in overcoming insomnia.

Also speaking Tuesday was Bea Aikens, founder of Lanie's Hope, a national advocacy group that aims to raise awareness about problem gambling and its effects.

Aikens, a recovering alcoholic and problem gambler, told the audience she hasn't had a drink in 26 years and placed her last bet 19 years ago.

She dedicated her life to the problem-gambling cause after her sister died in 2008, succumbing to a drug overdose while in recovery.

Gambling addiction can and does go undetected, Aikens said, because the afflicted often display none of the symptoms associated with addiction -- slurred speech, dilated pupils, "track marks."

The advocacy movement seeks to lift the veil from this "invisibility," she said.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com

Twitter: @bjhallenbeck

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