MILWAUKEE, Wis., June 20 (AScribe News) -- Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) have discovered a new treatment for alcoholism that may end problem drinking while also lessening the anxiety that is a common symptom of alcohol use and withdrawal.
The treatment, developed by Harry L. June, a science professor at IUPUI, and James M. Cook, a chemistry professor at UWM, also exhibits none of the side effects of medications for alcoholism or anxiety currently on the market.
June and Cook have received a five-year, $1.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study the brain mechanisms that control alcohol cravings and the evaluation of new drugs to reduce drinking.
Currently, drugs used to treat alcoholism, such as Naltrexone, don't address patients' accompanying anxiety or depression. For that, they also have to take an antidepressant, the mostly widely used being benzodiazepines - Valium or Xanax.
Benzodiazepines are habit-forming and can have other bad side effects like drowsiness or muscle weakness. Naltrexone has its own undesirable side effects, ranging from nausea to headaches. The side effects of the drugs can be so pervasive that many alcoholics trying to recover simply stop taking them, leaving them susceptible to their addiction.
"With this new treatment, we have a built-in anti-anxiety component and it is a treatment that may stop people from drinking," said June.
June, an expert in the neurobiological mechanisms of alcohol addiction, read about Cook's research on identifying the sedative effects of benzodiazepines and contacted him about contributing to a project on alcoholism.
Their discovery was tested successfully on rats bred with alcoholic tendencies. The compound interacts with certain neurotransmitters in the brain to block the euphoric effects of alcohol, ease anxiety, and inhibit sedation. It affects the same neurotransmitter site in the brain as Valium, but in a different fashion, Cook said.
"It has a fairly mild anxiolytic (anti-anxiety) activity," he said. "And that's good because if it were potent, people would become addicted to it - sort of what happens with methadone use to treat heroin addiction."
Indiana University's Advanced Research and Technology Institute (ARTI) and the University of Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) have applied for patent protection of the treatment. The discovery is now being marketed to pharmaceutical companies for human trials.
About 62 million people worldwide suffer from alcoholism, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates. In the United State alone, alcoholism affects about 15 million people, with the economic cost of the disease estimated at $185 billion.
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