Tablets Used In Treatment Of A Skin Disease May Help Control Alcoholism: Study

Excessive consumption of alcohol can lead to a number of health conditions. It can have adverse effects on your liver and weaken your immune system. Moreover, alcoholism can often lead to individuals becoming socially isolated and emotionally broken. There have been many medications that claim to treat alcohol consumption disorders, but now a rather unusual treatment has been discovered. A new study has found that a medication that is often used to treat a common skin ailment could be helpful for controlling alcohol addiction.

The study was carried out by Oregon Health and Science University and other institutions across the United States. The conclusions from the study are ‘extremely promising’ and have been published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. One of the co authors of the study, Angela Ozburn, said, “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

As per the research, the average amount of alcohol consumption by those who took the medicine, known as apremilast, was reduced by half, i.e., from five to two drinks per day. The researchers started the study in 2015. Apremilast tablet is used to treat conditions such as psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. They conducted a series of experiments on animals first. They discovered that apremilast caused the nucleus accumbens, the area of the brain responsible for moderating alcohol consumption, to become more active.

The study was further carried out by the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. They then started human trials for the drug. Their study involved 51 subjects who were assessed over 11 days after they went under treatment with this particular drug.

Barbara Mason, a co-author of the study from the Scripps Research Institute team, told the Oregon Health and Science University Press, “Apremilast’s large effect size on reducing drinking, combined with its good tolerability in our participants, suggests it is an excellent candidate for further evaluation as a novel treatment for people with alcohol use disorder.”

Meanwhile, Mason anticipates that the medication may be even more beneficial for people who are motivated to cut back on their alcohol consumption. The study was conducted with subjects who had alcohol disorders, but were not seeking any kind of treatment.

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