14 DAY TRIAL // Vices never come alone. For example, 85 % of the alcoholics also smoke. There are several available pills to help smokers fight the deadly habit, like varenicline, a drug developed by Pfizer that blocks nicotine's action of turning on the "happiness hormone" dopamine neurons. Varnicline is synthesized from the alkaloid cytisine, extracted from the Laburnum trees of Southern Europe and a poppy plant chemical.
Now a new research shows that it also stops the tendency to drink alcohol. 18 rats were given intermittent access to 40 proof alcohol for four months. The team led by Selena Bartlett, pharmacologist and alcohol researcher of the Ernest Gallo Clinic & Research Center at the University of California, San Francisco, made rats crave it by giving access to the liquor. Each time the animals could drink alcohol, they upped their intake.
"They drink all day and then they don't get to drink. The withdrawal makes them want to drink more." said Bartlett. The team found that even after months of acting like this (after 37 binge-drinking sessions), the rodents reduced their drinking in half when they ingested varenicline. When the drug was no more offered to them, the animals did not immediately imbibe more (the rebound effect that ruined other cures).
"That's because we believe [the drug] is turning down the reward system, instead of replacing the system." said Bartlett. The researchers suppose varenicline acts by speeding the brain receptors usually targeted by alcohol (or nicotine). The chemical was found also to decrease drinking in 7 rats with continuous access to alcohol and 30 rats trained to self-administer alcohol under stress situations.
Varenicline is already available as a smoking cessation drug in the U.S. And about other 30 European countries. The drug has also been found to bring other benefits, like impeding appetite loss in alcoholism. Moreover, "it's not metabolized in the liver, a major plus as people who have been drinking for a long time tend to have liver damage." said Bartlett.
The team is going to make clinical trials on humans, assessing this way how long the drug does linger in the human body. "In rats, the drug only lasts for a few hours, although it still cuts drinking in half. In humans, it lasts 24 hours," said Bartlett.