Diabetes drug may help treat alcohol addiction

A new study by Swedish researchers has shown that a drug used for diabetes and obesity could double up as a treatment for alcohol dependence.

Alcoholabuse is a major problem in our society today, causing 2.5 million deaths annually worldwide from accidents, violent crimes and binge drinking.

Nearly 5% of adults in Sweden are alcohol dependent, which costs the Swedish government SEK 45 billion annually. [Read more “Love hormone” Oxytocin may also enhance spiritual beliefs in men]

A 2013 statistics show that about 1.3 million adults (904,000 men, 444,000 women) and 73,000 teens (44,000 males, 29,000 females) received treatments for Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) in the United States at a specialized facility. Also, in the U.S., 39% of all traffic deaths involved alcohol in 2005 and in 2007, 12,998 alcohol-related traffic deaths were reported.

In England, 187,640 National Health System alcohol-related hospital admissions were reported between 2005-2006. [Read more FastingBefore a Blood Test for Diabetes Might Actually Be Harmful, Says Study]

According to one study, 23 million people in the European Union are alcohol dependent.

Researchers from Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, after testing on mice and rats found that a drugresembling GLP-1, which is used to treat type 2 diabetes and obesity, could also be used to treat alcohol addiction.

"The results of the present study suggest that the physiological role of GLP-1 extends beyond glucose homeostasis and food intake regulation and includes modulation of development of alcohol dependence," said Elisabet Jerlhag, a researcher at Sahlgrenska Academy.

"In addition we suggest that medications that resemble GLP-1 could be used to treat alcohol dependence in humans."

The researchers set out to discover whether the mechanism that controls hunger in the body could be used to control in a similar way for mice with alcohol-related disorders.

For the study, the researchers bred mice with alcohol related behaviors which are similar to those in humans with varying levels of alcohol related disorder. [Read more BellyFat May Cause Cognitive Impairment]

When a person consumes alcohol, dopamine is released in the brain’s reward centre. This causes a sense of exhilaration. In the mice, the GLP-1-like substance prevented alcohol’s ability to increase dopamine in the brain’s reward area, suggesting that they will not experience a reward from alcohol any longer. [Read more Diabetes treatment may become ‘ouchless’ with the new insulin pill]

In rats, the drug also prevented relapse drinking, which is a major problem for people with alcohol addiction.

“The GLP-1-like substance reduced the alcohol consumption by 30-40 percent in rats that drank large quantities of alcohol for several months” said Ms. Jerlhag.

In the new study, it was also reported that GLP-1 has also been previously shown to reduce cravings for amphetamine, cocaine and nicotine in similar ways as its effects on alcohol.
The article was published in the journal Addict Biology.