A new group of drugs will make it possible to treat the disease without causing unwanted side effects that appear in the treatments available today
[Translation by Dr. Nachmani Moshe]
Addiction to alcohol entails a heavy physical, mental and financial price, both on the person and on society as a whole. New discoveries and research in the field now offer a glimmer of hope that a new group of drugs will make it possible to treat the disease without causing unwanted side effects that appear in the current treatments.
Alcohol addiction is a serious problem in the US," explains researcher Phani Babu Tiruveedhula from the University of Wisconsin. Alcohol abuse causes economic damage to the American economy at a cost of 220 billion dollars every year, and this is a staggering cost. We need more effective treatment methods today."
The exact reasons that give rise to alcohol addiction are not fully understood, however, researchers explain that the urge to drink is related to the pleasure centers in the brain. Scientists have discovered that the alcohol itself causes the brain to release the substance dopamine, the same neurochemical whose concentration increases in response to pleasant experiences, such as eating, having sex or listening to music. Some of the drugs available today that are designed to treat alcohol addiction focus on dopamine. "These drugs slightly calm the dopamine system, so the patient who takes them does not feel the same pleasant feeling after drinking the alcoholic beverage as before," explains the researcher. However, these drugs, based on a group of compounds known as 'opioid receptor blockers', cause depression in some patients, the researcher notes. In addition, these drugs themselves are addictive, which can lead to drug addiction. The well-known drug Valium is one example of a common drug used to treat alcohol addiction that is itself addictive. The researchers began to examine compounds with similar properties, but those that do not cause negative side effects. This study of theirs, conducted in collaboration with scientists from Harvard University, lasted about a decade. Now, the researchers present the promising new family of compounds called beta-carboline (beta-carboline, Wikipedia) that could help develop effective treatments in the future. The researchers were able to prepare these compounds in only two synthetic steps, instead of eight previously, while increasing the utilization tenfold and preventing the possibility of receiving unwanted byproducts. The researchers explain that these compounds can be taken orally (by mouth).
As part of experiments on rats, the researchers found that these drugs cause a significant reduction in the rats' urge to drink alcoholic beverages. In addition, the rate of side effects observed in these trials, for example the onset of depression, decreased. The findings showed that the drugs reduce anxiety in "alcohol-addicted" rats, but not in control rats. In light of the fact that these findings are fundamentally different from the findings obtained with other drugs intended for the same treatment, the researchers believe that the new compounds work in a different mechanism than that of the drugs from the opioid receptor blocker family. In light of this, the researchers hope that these new compounds will also be less addictive. "What excites me is the fact that our compounds are orally active, meaning they dissolve in the blood, and that they do not cause side effects as is the case with existing drugs," the researcher notes. The research group continues to test the compounds as part of additional experiments in the BH. The researchers have applied for a patent on some of the most promising compounds, and are looking for partners from the pharmaceutical industry to advance them towards the development of drugs based on these compounds. If all goes well, the lead researcher hopes, such a drug will be available in the markets within six years.
The news about the research on the website of the American Chemical Society
