Updated 02/15/2011 10:05 AM
Health Works: Waggoner Center studies alcoholism
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What if there was a way to learn you have an addiction before it gets out of hand?
Researchers at the Waggoner Center at the University of Texas have discovered that alcoholism is a disease that's often not detected early enough.
Dr. Adron Harris is the Director of the Waggoner Center for Alcohol and Addiction Research at the University of Texas. He said knowing about a problem early on is important.
"With any disease, the longer you wait, the more you let the disease advance, the more difficult it is to treat," he said. "We don't have all of the tests to treat it. So one goal of the Wagner center is to devise treatments and devise new tests."
Researchers at the center are devising those new treatments and tests through experimentation.
"We use a variety of techniques to try to investigate those early diagnostics because if you can diagnose a condition early, then treatment interventions are more likely to succeed," researcher Dr. Dayne Mayfield said.
Discovering that link could answer many questions and bring a cure to a life-threatening addiction.
The Waggoner Center for Alcohol and Addiction Research was created in 1999 after a generous donation from June and Virgil Waggoner who lost their son to alcohol addiction.