DRUG FOR KEEPING ALCOHOLICS ON THE WAGON

CHICAGO: A drug widely used outside the United States to help keep
alcoholics from drinking shows promise in its first American test,
researchers report.

Acamprosate worked best in people who aimed to avoid alcohol entirely,
rather than just cutting down, said researcher Barbara Mason of the
University of Miami School of Medicine. "It's not magic," she said.
"It's not something a spouse can put in the coffee of the alcoholic in
the morning and the problem will go away. It has to go hand-in-hand
with having abstinence as your treatment goal."

Mason presented the study's results on Monday at the annual meeting of
the American Psychiatric Association. Acamprosate is now sold in
Europe, South America, Asia and elsewhere, and more than a million
people have taken it, Mason said.

It is manufactured by Lipha S.A. of Lyon, France, which paid for the
new study. Dr. Anita Goodman, executive vice president of Lipha's
clinical development group in the United States, said the company
plans to get the drug on the American market "as soon as we can." That
step, which would require federal approval, will take at least a year,
she said on Monday.

Doctors already have some drugs available to maintain abstinence. One,
disulfiram, makes a user feel nauseous and otherwise sick if he or she
also uses alcohol. Another medication, naltrexone, acts on brain
circuitry to reduce the desire to drink. Acamprosate acts on different
brain circuitry.

Mason's six-month study involved 601 alcoholics who were treated at 21
medical centers. They were randomly assigned to take either
acamprosate tablets or a placebo twice a day, starting two to 10 days
after their last bout of excessive drinking. They also received
psychological treatment, education about effects of alcohol,
strategies to help them cut down and quit drinking and exercises to
identify what led them to drink.

Only 41 per cent of the participants, or 241 people, began the study
with a goal of complete abstinence, Mason said. Of those people, those
on the placebo stayed away from alcohol on 58 per cent of the days
they were studied. Those taking 2 grams a day of acamprosate didn't
drink on 70 per cent of the days they were studied; for people on 3
grams, the figure was 73 per cent. In all, the members of the placebo
group cut their weekly intake of drinks by 36 per cent; the two other
groups each reduced it by 40 per cent.

Raye Litten, a programme officer for medications development at the
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, said acamprosate
has a modest effect on drinking that's about the same as naltrexone.
"It's another way to treat alcoholism," he said. "The more weapons you
have to treat, the better off you'll be, because what works for one
person may not work for another."