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from the Stopping-is-easy...-I've-done-it-many-times! dept.
A new study published by the scientific journal Addiction has found no reliable evidence for using nalmefene, naltrexone, acamprosate, baclofen or topiramate to control drinking in patients with alcohol dependence or alcohol use disorder. At best, some treatments showed low to medium efficacy in reducing drinking, but those findings were from studies with a high risk of bias. None demonstrated any benefit on health outcomes.
The study pooled the results from 32 double-blind randomised controlled trials representing 6,036 patients, published between 1994 and 2015. The studies compared the effects of oral nalmefene (n=9), naltrexone (n=14), acamprosate (n=1), baclofen (n=4) and topimarate (n=4) against placebo.
Many of the studies provided unreliable results due to risk of bias (potential exaggeration of the effects of the drug). Twenty-six studies (81%) showed an unclear or high risk of incomplete outcome data due to the large number of withdrawals. Seventeen studies (53%) showed an unclear or a high risk of selective outcome reporting, as they did not include a protocol registration number, which would allow another researcher to check whether all outcomes were reported.
Clément Palpacuer, et. al. Pharmacologically controlled drinking in the treatment of alcohol dependence or alcohol use disorders: a systematic review with direct and network meta-analyses on nalmefene, naltrexone, acamprosate, baclofen and topiramate. Addiction, 2017; DOI: 10.1111/add.13974
Back to the drawing board.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 22 2017, @01:22PM (4 children)
Ultimately, the only way to stop using is to decide to do so.
But this 'personal responsibility' path to that is problematic.
The brain that needs to decide is re-wired by the drugs not to make that choice.
Some form of outside help greatly improves the odds.
AA/NA's plan to get help more powerful than your pitiful/helpless self can provide is a working plan for some.
Even if it only provides a fig leaf for what will ultimately have to be self help.
As for the idea of yet another drug to eliminate one drug as an option for addiction.
Addicts are resourceful, they can simply switch to a new drug of choice.
Soooo, the basic goal of the treatment path is flawed.
Even so, it will probably work as yet another cash flow device for pharma.
But, that's another problem.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday September 22 2017, @05:19PM (3 children)
and yet you found the solution yourself:
"they can simply switch to a new drug of choice"
Yes: it is all a 'personal choice' thing. Choose NOT to go to the liquor store. Choose NOT to buy the 'drug'. Choose NOT to drink it.
IT IS a CHOICE!
DON'T BUY IT, DON'T GO NEAR IT, DON'T HAVE IT AROUND YOU AND YOU CANNOT DRINK IT!
Choose to buy it, it is a choice YOU have made.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 22 2017, @08:55PM (2 children)
I'm sure there are people who, after breaking a bone, can properly set the it again and heal back to 100% function with nothing more than a stick and torn cloth. The rest of us need casts and a crutches when we break our bones.
Or what the fuck do I know. If somebody you claim to love broke a bone, you probably insist that they live with the broken bone for the rest of their lives. After all, if they didn't want a broken bone, they shouldn't have been doing whatever it was they were doing when they broke the bone! They chose to break the bone!
See, easy! Let's all be Puritans like you, and then the only people left living will be people who live in clean rooms and do nothing but sip weak tea and eat saltine crackers! And then the survivors will all die from sitting too long! Ha!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 22 2017, @11:18PM
Saltines are for devil-worshiping witches! We eat graham-crackers [wikipedia.org], as the Temperance movement prescribes
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday September 23 2017, @03:40PM
Can you turn that into a car analogy? I'm sure it would fail just as well as your broken bone analogy.
Okay, answer me this:
If you do not go to the liquor store, do not go to a bar, do not hang with people who drink, do not have liquor in your house, how will you be able to drink?
You make a choice. You.
Personal responsibility. Go to the liquor store or don't. There is no try.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---