Addiction is considered an illness because the set of phenomena arising from the loss of control meets all the requirements that medicine demands in order to consider a given set of signs and symptoms an illness:
- It has a natural history
- There is a clinical picture that is perfectly identified and similar for all individuals who suffer from it
- There is an aetiology (causes)
- A pathophysiology (the development of the physiological and pathological factors underlying the illness)
- A prognosis
- A comprehensive therapeutic framework
- A series of strategies for its prevention.
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