MINNEAPOLIS, February 18, 2008—A new drug aims to reduce alcoholics' desire to drink by taking the edge off stressful situations.

A study released Thursday, February 14 in Science says behavioral stress is a major factor in perpetuating the "vicious cycle" of alcoholism, according to Markus Heilig, M.D., clinical director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and lead author of the study.

Heilig explained that alcohol deprivation causes depression and increases a person's sensitivity to anxiety-provoking situations, such as a heated conversation with a spouse or partner, or troubles at work.

"Alcohol is a particularly nasty drug because it actually makes you feel better, but it pushes you to feel worse once you're without alcohol," Heilig said in an interview with Agence France-Press.

The study identified an area of the brain, the neurokinin 1 receptor that mediates responses to behavioral stress. The drug Heilig's team tested was an NK1R antagonist.

Helig and his team tested its effectiveness on 50 alcoholics with anxiety problems who had been through detox and remained hospitalized for the four weeks of the trial. Half were given a placebo and the other half were given the drug.

Results showed that the desire for alcohol in all patients decreased over time. But those who had been administered the NK1R antagonist showed greater improvement in the severity of their cravings when measured by subject questionnaires, the assessment of their clinicians, and tests in which they were placed in difficult social situations and asked to hold a bottle and sniff the spirits.

The next step is larger clinical trials to see if the drug may be useful to drinkers who do not report anxiety problems.

Science Express story