Scientists find new treatment for alcohol addiction
Hyderabad: There appears to be a solution to treat alcoholism now. Scientists have found a hormone which can reduce the craving for alcohol consumption at least by half. The hormone Fibroblast Growth Factor 21 (FGF21), administered to a group of vervet monkeys showed that the urge to drink alcohol reduced by half, according to an […]
Hyderabad: There appears to be a solution to treat alcoholism now. Scientists have found a hormone which can reduce the craving for alcohol consumption at least by half.
The hormone Fibroblast Growth Factor 21 (FGF21), administered to a group of vervet monkeys showed that the urge to drink alcohol reduced by half, according to an article published in scientific journal Cell Metabolism.
By the way, vervet monkeys are known for their penchant to consume alcohol and were taken as subjects for testing the efficacy of FGF21 by scientists of University of Iowa. The scientific community hopes that the test results on vervet monkeys potentially offers a solution for treating humans too.
The hormone FGF21 produced by the liver plays a role in alcohol addiction, finds the study published on February 1 in Cell Metabolism.
Vervet monkeys with a strong alcohol preference drank far less after they were given a synthetic version of this hormone. This finding is said to have opened the path to new treatments for alcohol addiction.
Vervet monkeys with a strong preference for ethanol that were given an FGF21 analogue consumed 50 per cent less alcohol. Researchers also studied the brain circuits involved in mice and found that the protein, known to also reduce sugar intake, acts on different circuits to reduce alcohol and sugar consumption.
“When considering how and why these modality-specific mechanisms evolved, it is interesting to note that mammals were primarily exposed to alcohol from fermenting fruits, which possess high levels of simple sugars. Despite this, neural circuits regulating FGF21-mediated suppression of sugar and alcohol intake apparently developed independently and not in response to a shared selective pressure,” said Matthew Potthoff, Senior Study Author, University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine.
Potthoff and University of Iowa co-authors, together with international collaborators – including University of Iowa co-first author, Kyle Flippo, PhD, and Matthew Gillum, PhD, and Samuel Trammell, PhD, of the University of Copenhagen reported on their findings in a paper titled “FGF21 suppresses alcohol consumption through an amygdala-striatal circuit.”
They concluded, “These findings identify a homeostatic liver-to-brain circuit that regulates alcohol consumption and demonstrates the feasibility of targeting this pathway for therapeutic applications.”
Excessive alcohol consumption is a major health and social issue and as the excessive alcohol consumption negatively impacts health and survival, it is not surprising that numerous physiological systems have evolved to sense and regulate it in mammals. But efforts to therapeutically target pathways that regulate alcohol consumption haven’t been wholly successful.
According to scientists, more research is needed to investigate the specific effects of FGF21 on the activity of these neurons during alcohol consumption in animal models.
“Our results provide a mechanism for a liver-to-brain endocrine feedback loop that presumably functions to protect the liver from damage,” University of Iowa co-first author, Kyle Flippo says. He further noted that present data indicates FGF21 analogues may provide a potential treatment option against alcohol-use disorder and related diagnosis.
Also Read: Meet vervet monkeys who raid bars for cocktails
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