Could a Blood Pressure
Drug Treat Alcohol Addiction?
By Dr.Fourkan Ali
If
effective in human trials, the drug could open the door to an effective medical
treatment for alcohol use disorders.
An FDA-approved beta blocker already used to treat hypertension,
high blood pressure and angina could offer a new way to treat alcohol
addiction. A new study indicates that the drug, known as pindolol, could
potentially reduce alcohol
consumption, particularly in
cases of binge drinking.
According to the Queensland University of Technology
researchers, pindolol diminishes ethanol intake in mice, a behavior that
mirrors binge drinking in human beings. In the study, the antihypertensive drug
attenuated long-term, but not short-term, binge-alcohol consumption in the
mice.
Published in Addiction Biology, the preclinical study is the first step towards testing
pindolol in human clinical trials as a treatment option for AUDs (alcohol use
disorders). "Data collected from our study found that pindolol diminishes
ethanol intake in animal models of binge-alcohol consumption," said
researcher Omar Patkar in a release. "More research is required but we
believe the results from our study show that pindolol represents a novel, safe
and ready to test treatment therapy option for managing alcohol dependence in
humans."
If effective in human trials, the drug could open the door to an
effective medical treatment for alcohol abuse, alcohol addiction, and even
alcoholism. Since alcohol addiction causes about 3.8% of deaths worldwide, such a treatment would certainly have a significant impact.
Given the genetic factors that go hand-in-hand with alcoholism, it's hard to
know if the drug would work in the more advanced stages of the disease. Still,
neuroscientist Selena Bartlett from the Institute of Health and Biomedical
Innovation at QUT believes pindolol could provide an inexpensive approach to
treating alcohol dependence.
"Drugs currently used for AUDs—acamprosate, naltrexone and
disulfiram—have limited success, so this is a ground-breaking development with
enormous potential," Bartlett explained.
"In an internationally significant breakthrough, our study showed pindolol
was able to reduce ethanol/alcohol consumption, particularly in relation to
binge drinking, a key behavior observed in human alcohol dependence."
Without question, such a breakthrough would revolutionize the
treatment of alcohol use disorder in human subjects. Still, people are
biologically and psychologically very different from mice, and it’s hard to
know what the outcome of human clinical trials would be. In their study
conclusions, the researchers seem enthusiastic about the prognosis, writing that
though further research is required, "this study demonstrates the
potential of pindolol as a new treatment option for AUDs that can be
fast-tracked into human clinical studies."
Sources - The Fix
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