Researchers at the University of Washington are joining an international drug trial to see if a popular weight loss drug can help curb alcohol cravings.
Clinicians are partnering with the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly to test a new GLP-1 medication called brenipatide to see if it can effectively treat alcohol addiction. The trial is specifically assessing if it helps individuals with moderate to severe alcohol use disorder reduce their drinking or stop altogether.
This drug is similar to medications like Ozempic that can help with weight loss and diabetes. This trial will span 14 months. Participants will be between 18 and 75 years old. Across the U.S. 30 test sites that are participating in the drug trial. UW is the only one located in the Pacific Northwest.
Dr. Mark Duncan is a psychiatrist who specializes in addiction and is UW’s principal investigator for the study.
He said this type of medication is well known for reducing food cravings, but there is emerging evidence that it helps with drinking and other addictive substances.
“What you’ll hear is that ‘I just was not interested in drinking. I may have forgotten that I was typically drunk at this time’ because all of the internal cues, and psychological cues, that you know are normally there are just not happening.”
Duncan said if GLP-1s are proven to be an effective treatment for alcohol addiction this could be a huge step forward because many of the medications currently available aren’t very consistent.
“Meds for alcohol use disorder, they're just not consistently effective,” he said. “We really don't have a good idea of why that is.”
Mary Hatch, a psychologist with UW working on the drug trial, said using GLP-1 to help treat alcohol addiction is an exciting prospect.
“The possibility that your primary care provider could offer a medication that everybody has heard of, and that's used for non-substance problems, like diabetes, or weight loss, or cardiac problems,” she said, could make treatment more accessible.
She pointed out that other addiction treatment like rehab is not always appealing or easy to enroll in, and an effective medication could help more people who are struggling with their drinking.
Potentially, instead of signing up for inpatient rehab, “I can just go to my regular doctor and get this regular medication,” Hatch said.
According to a UW news release, this research is being conducted alongside other studies that are looking into whether this medication can help with opioid and nicotine addiction.
