poledriver
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2005
- Messages
- 11,543
New drug can help alcoholics drink 60% less - but only if they are having counselling
A drug, which could help problem drinkers reduce the amount of alcohol they consume, will become available to patients in the UK today.
If dependent drinkers take the drug, nalmefene, while undergoing counselling they can cut their consumption levels by 61 per cent, the manufacturers have claimed.
The pill, also known as Selincro, has been licensed for use by health officials and will be available for doctors to prescribe to their patients from today.
The drug, which is to be taken once a day, has been licensed for ‘the reduction of alcohol consumption in adult patients with alcohol dependence without physical withdrawal symptoms and who do not require immediate detoxification’.
While current drugs help patients to become entirely teetotal, nalmefene helps patients with drinking problems to cut back on the amount they drink.
It works by modulating the reward mechanism in the brain which means that cravings are reduced and less satisfaction is gained from drinking.
During a clinical trial into the drug it was shown to help patients cut the amount of alcohol they consumed from 12.75 units a day, to five units a day - a 61 per cent reduction.
And patients who underwent counselling as well as taking the drug reduced their ‘heavy drinking days’ from 23 days a month to nine days a month, after undergoing the treatment for six months, researchers said.
‘The people who we saw in the study were not stereotypical alcoholics, most of them had families and jobs,’ said drug investigator Dr David Collier, of Barts and The London School of Medicine.
Cont -
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...ink-60--having-counselling.html#ixzz2SXzGVFCh
A drug, which could help problem drinkers reduce the amount of alcohol they consume, will become available to patients in the UK today.
If dependent drinkers take the drug, nalmefene, while undergoing counselling they can cut their consumption levels by 61 per cent, the manufacturers have claimed.
The pill, also known as Selincro, has been licensed for use by health officials and will be available for doctors to prescribe to their patients from today.
The drug, which is to be taken once a day, has been licensed for ‘the reduction of alcohol consumption in adult patients with alcohol dependence without physical withdrawal symptoms and who do not require immediate detoxification’.
While current drugs help patients to become entirely teetotal, nalmefene helps patients with drinking problems to cut back on the amount they drink.
It works by modulating the reward mechanism in the brain which means that cravings are reduced and less satisfaction is gained from drinking.
During a clinical trial into the drug it was shown to help patients cut the amount of alcohol they consumed from 12.75 units a day, to five units a day - a 61 per cent reduction.
And patients who underwent counselling as well as taking the drug reduced their ‘heavy drinking days’ from 23 days a month to nine days a month, after undergoing the treatment for six months, researchers said.
‘The people who we saw in the study were not stereotypical alcoholics, most of them had families and jobs,’ said drug investigator Dr David Collier, of Barts and The London School of Medicine.
Cont -
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...ink-60--having-counselling.html#ixzz2SXzGVFCh
