Former British Foreign Secretary Lord David Owen has proposed the existence of a "Hubris Syndrome" - an acquired personality disorder which arises in some leaders because of the effects of power on their brains. Among others, he diagnosed UK Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher as having succumbed to this disorder, both of whom ingested the power drug for that crucial 10 years.

The symptoms of Owen´s ´Hubris Syndrome´ include the following:
• A narcissistic preoccupation with one´s image (eg, about not being seen to back down and lose ´strong man´ image).
• A tendency for the leader to see the nation´s interests and his own as identical, including a tendency to talk in the third person about himself.
• An excessive confidence in the leader´s own judgment and contempt for the advice or criticism of others, along with a sense of omnipotence.
• A tendency to feel accountable to History or God rather than to more mundane political or legal courts.
• A tendency towards a loss of contact with reality and progressive isolation.
• "Hubristic incompetence", where things go wrong because of over-confidence and impaired judgment