TORONTO – Take a pill to stave off cravings for alcohol. It sounds too good to be true, but British health officials are doling out this medication to those who have trouble controlling how much they drink.
If you’re a resident in England or Wales and you’re drinking half of a bottle of wine or up to three pints a day, chances are you’d be a candidate for the medication.
It’s called nalmefene, or selincro, and it’s taken once a day on an as-needed basis, according to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). The dosage, paired with counselling and mental support, allegedly blocks the parts of the brain that make drinking so pleasurable.
“Many people have a difficult relationship with alcohol even though they have a very stable lifestyle, maintain jobs and a social life and would not automatically assume they have a problem. But regularly drinking over the recommended daily amount of alcohol can seriously damage your health,” Carole Longson, of NICE, explained in a statement.
“Those who could be prescribed nalmefene have already taken the first big steps by visiting their doctor, engaging with support services and taking part in therapy programs,” she said.
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Right now, health officials are recommending nalmefene to British men who drink more than 7.5 units per day – about a bottle of wine per day – or five units per day for women. Family doctors should ask patients about their alcohol consumption during routine checkups, NICE says.
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The pill costs about £3 per tablet, or £42.42 for a 14-tablet pack. In clinical trials, NICE said the medication, working in tandem with counselling, cut drinking by 61 per cent, according to the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper.
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Health officials project that about 35,000 people could be using nalmefene. In 2012-2013, NICE estimates that 1.2 million hospital admissions in England were due to an alcohol-related condition or injury.
The drug has already rolled out in Scotland, too.
Last year, British researchers were also working on a cure for hangovers. Dr. David Nutt, a professor at Imperial College London, has promised “healthy alcohol” could be on the market within just two years if he pulls together enough funding.
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Nutt says he believes he’s identified five compounds that can act as alcohol surrogates, offering users the same feel-good highs alcohol gives without the side effects, such as aggression and addictiveness.
“The challenge is to prepare the new drink in a fashion that makes it as tasty and appealing. This is likely to be in the form of a cocktail, so I foresee plenty of different flavours,” he wrote.
Users would drink Nutt’s “healthy alcohol” then take a pill, acting as an antidote, that would get rid of any hangover symptoms.
carmen.chai@globalnews.ca
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