RNS: Epilepsy drug may help alcoholics recover from dependence
TIME: 3:31
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Epilepsy drug may help alcoholics recover from dependence
Further studies of non-addictive drug gabapentin for insomnia during alcohol recovery are warranted, researchers say
Suggested lead: A new University of Michigan study hints that people who have both alcohol problems and sleep problems – which often occur together -- might be helped by an epilepsy drug. The study, which is small but was placebo-controlled, opens the door for further research on how to help alcohol-dependent people escape the Catch-22 of insomnia and drinking that often stands in the way of their recovery. Here’s Jamie Maurer with more.
Talk about a Catch-22. People with alcohol problems often use alcohol to get to sleep -- but it actually keeps them from getting good-quality sleep all night long. At the same time, they’re highly likely to suffer from full-blown chronic insomnia – which cuts their chances of getting sober again.
To top it off, their doctors aren’t likely to prescribe them insomnia medications, which might be habit-forming or affect their alcohol-damaged liver.
Now, a small new pilot study from University of Michigan alcoholism and sleep researchers offers some sign of a possible way out of this conundrum. It suggests that the epilepsy drug gabapentin might be able to reduce insomnia in recovering alcoholics, and help them stay away from alcohol more successfully.
Dr. Flavia Consens, a sleep specialist, explains the issue – and the research findings that might lead to a solution:
"Sleep in alcoholics is very, very impaired and estimates go that between 30 to 70-percent of alcoholics suffer from insomnia, for example.
Insomnia could be treated by multiple medications in the general population. The big concern in the alcoholic population is this group of patients tend to have a higher risk for addiction and the majority of medications that are available for treatment of insomnia are hypnotics that have a high rate of addiction, and there’s also a concern that it may be overused as another drug."
Although the new study is small, involving just 21 insomniacs who were in the early stages of recovering from alcohol dependence, Dr. Consens says the results are very encouraging.
"It was a double blind randomized [study], so neither the investigators nor the patients knew what drug they were taking, and they were given a drug, gabapentin in this case, or placebo, which is a pill that doesn’t have any drug effect that is exactly the same when they look at it. And it was given in a nightly dose and these patients were monitored for their sleep and their chances of relapse into alcohol.
The study looked at how sleep parameters were changed in those patients that were taking the drug versus the placebo, and while they were taking the drug, and after six and twelve weeks after even they were taken off the drugs, there was a clear decrease in the chances of relapse.
In the placebo group there was clearly a higher number of subjects that relapsed into alcohol. 80-percent of the patients relapsed versus only 30-percent of the patients relapsed in the treatment group."
Why did this happen? The researchers are still trying to figure this out – and have launched a new study that is currently seeking people who are in the early weeks of recovering from alcohol dependence. Dr. Consens says the answer may be rooted deep in the brain.
"A possible explanation is that they decrease the insomnia initially and the patients may not need or crave alcohol as a treatment for the insomnia. (There’s) also, we’re looking into other things that may have effect in the neurochemistry of the brain and the neurotransmitters and see how this could impact their recovery and their sleep."
Dr. Consens, and study leader Dr. Kirk Brower of U-M Addiction Treatment Services, hope that further research will help them find a way to help patients escape the Catch-22 of sleep and alcohol.
To find out more about the new study, which is testing gabapentin over a longer period of time and with more measures of sleep, call 734-232-0465 or e-mail dreamteam@umich.edu.
Jamie Maurer, U of M Health System News
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