New Drug Shows Promise In Helping People With Alcohol Addiction Reduce Drinking, Smoking

For those people who love drinking and getting drunk to relieve stress, this may be one of the best news you'll hear so far. A new drug has recently been developed to hopefully benefit people with alcohol addiction. The medicine has been said to target those people who are particularly experiencing higher levels of stress.

Researchers, led by Raye Litten, from the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, conducted a clinical trial of a new drug, called ABT-436, which is specifically designed to block the effects of vasopressin, a neuropeptide produced in the brain's hypothalamus. "Vasopressin helps to regulate the pituitary adrenal axis and other brain circuits involved in emotion. As such, it plays a role in regulating stress, anxiety and their interaction with AUD," said Litten.

According to Live Science, the study involved 144 people suffering from alcohol use disorder (AUD), which is defined as drinking that causes them harm or distress, including problems at work and with relationships. In the beginning part of the study, the participants reported consuming an average of 10 alcohol drinks daily. The researchers randomly picked participants to take either the new drug called ABT-436, or a placebo (a "dummy pill") every day for 12 weeks. And since the study was double-blinded, neither the participants nor the researchers knew which people had received the drug, and which had received the placebo.

Researchers then followed up the participants' alcohol consumption, as well as the changes in their mood and smoking habits, which are known to change together with the amount of alcohol they consume. They observed that participants receiving ABT-436 experienced more days of alcohol abstinence than those receiving the placebo. More importantly, Indian Express reported that those who reported having high levels of stress showed a better response to ABT-436, both in the frequency of their drinking and the number of heavy drinking days they experienced decreased.

"Our findings suggest that potential future studies with drugs targeting vasopressin blockade should focus on populations of people with AUD who also report high levels of stress," said first author Megan Ryan, a clinical project manager in the NIAAA Division of Medications Development. Researchers also noticed that smokers also benefitted from the newly discovered drug. Experts believe that ABT-436 targets the same areas in the brain that relate to withdrawal and stress and in the process affect both tobacco and alcohol use disorders, reported Times of India.

Meanwhile, side effects of ABT-436 included diarrhea and nausea, but most people who took the drug said that their side effects were mild. However, four people in the study stopped taking the drug because of diarrhea or nausea.