A study suggested that new drug medicines may help in over coming drug addiction as food cravings worked in the same manner as drug addiction in the brain.
Weight loss drugs can help in the treatment for addicts who are recovering.
Brain scans of 18 cocaine addicts found that when they thought about drugs they exhibited higher levels of dopamine, a chemical tied to feelings of reward and pleasure, in a brain region that's also activated by food deprivation.
Other studies showed reduced sensitivity in the reward circuits of both addicts and obese people, possibly leading them to compensate with drugs or overeating.
The data is to be presented Friday at a meeting
in San Francisco. Pfizer Inc., Sanofi-Aventis SA and Bristol-Myers
Squibb Co. are developing new
types of diet pills that work by blocking hunger signals
in the brain. Some health officials hope to capitalize on
the drugmakers' research by testing the compounds on smoking,
alcoholism and other substance abuse.
The moment that you can show that there is in fact feasibility that these compounds are useful, then I think that there will be more openness" for companies to develop them for drug addiction, said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in a telephone interview this week.
While drugmakers are racing to gain a piece of the market for treating the two-thirds of People who are overweight, companies so far have been reluctant to invest in new addiction treatments. Volkow said drugmakers are wary of the stigma tied to substance abuse and the uncertainty of pricing because few insurers cover treatment for drug addiction.
Her staff has been working with Paris-based
Sanofi’s to see if its experimental fat-fighting pill,
Acomplia, can block drug
cravings in animals.
