Dr. Henry R. Kranzler and colleagues from the University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington believe that the use of Abilify (aripiprazole) may be of use to patients battling an addiction to alcohol.
Abilify, a drug used to treat the symptoms of psychosis in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder was found to increase the sedative effects of alcohol and decrease the euphoric effects. The drug apparently works by affecting the dopamine receptors in the brain and thus reducing the reinforcing effects of alcohol.
While treatment with Abilify was generally well tolerated, researchers found that the most commonly reported adverse effect was tiredness, nausea, headache and difficulty sleeping.
The researchers agree that while the drug has potential in the treatment of alcohol addiction more research needs to be conducted before a definitive conclusion can be reached.
The results of the study were published in "Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research".
[Source: YahooNews]
During the past decade, efforts to develop medications for alcoholism have burgeoned. Three agents, disulfiram, naltrexone and acamprosate, are now approved in a large number of countries. Although many patients have benefited from existing medications, their effects are moderate, and some alcoholics fail to respond to them. A host of new agents are currently under active investigation. Critical barriers must be overcome to ensure that future efforts in the development of medications for alcohol use disorders reach full fruition. These challenges include: establishing key targets for drug discovery; validating animal and human screening models; and developing biomarkers to help predict treatment success. In addition, it is important to formulate methodological and statistical strategies to efficiently conduct alcohol pharmacotherapy trials; to specify genetic and phenotypic patient characteristics associated with efficacy and safety for lead compounds; to forge productive alliances among governmental agencies, the pharmaceutical industry and academic researchers to further drug development; and, ultimately and pe-rhaps most difficult, to engage the practitioner community to incorporate medications into the alcohol treatment process.
--------------------------
fred
Alcoholism Information
Posted by: fred | January 30, 2009 3:19 AM | Permalink to Comment