Varenicline Shows Promise for Reducing Alcohol Use

For almost a decade, varenicline—marketed as Chantix—has been spotlighted as a pharmacotherapy intended to achieve smoking cessation in those with a nicotine addiction. Now the drug is in the spotlight for a different reason—its ability to reduce alcohol use.

Daniel Falk, Ph.D., health science administrator for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), presented results on Saturday from a phase 2 clinical trial that assessed the effectiveness and safety of varenicline.

“There is a high comorbidity between nicotine use and alcohol use,” said Falk, who explained to Psychiatric News that one-third of Americans who use nicotine also use alcohol. “Research consisting of animal models and in small clinical trials has shown that varenicline reduces alcohol use as well as [alcohol] craving. These converging lines of evidence led us to pursuing a multisite, large-scale clinical trial.”

The phase 2 trial included 200 smokers and nonsmokers with alcohol use disorder, in accordance with DSM-IV, who were administered 2 mg of varenicline a day or a placebo for 13 weeks.

The results showed that participants taking varenicline had an average of 33 percent less heavy drinking days compared with the placebo group. In addition, the varenicline cohort was on average 13 percent more likely to abstain from daily alcohol use. Adverse events included nausea, constipation, and chest pains. Psychiatric side effects were not observed.

Falk hypothesized that the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, which has been shown to be involved in the rewarding effects of both nicotine and alcohol use, may be responsible for this outcome. “We are definitely interested in doing more research with compounds that target the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, like varenicline, in the treatment of alcohol use disorder, and we encourage other alcohol use disorder researchers to do the same.”

To learn more about the ability of varenicline to treat alcohol dependence, click here.