A New Assault on Addiction
motivated to take it. "If this drug isn't used with a comprehensive treatment program,"
Medicine: Can a single drug keep alcoholics on the
says DuPont Merck president Kurt Landgraf, “the failure rates are very high." And
wagon and help junkies through withdrawal?
naltrexone poses hazards of its own. The common side effects are minor, ranging from nausea to joint pain, but it can cause liver
damage at just five times the recommended
volunteered, in early 1990, to take part in an
experiment at the University of Pennsylvania.
that the drug should not be used by anyone
The fortyish sales manager kept attending her
currently dependent on opioids” such as
Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, but for three
heroin and morphine. Because it fences off the
months she also took: daily doses of a drug
nervous system from opiates circulating in the
called naltrexone. "Once I started," she recalls,
"everything turned around. It stopped my
desire to drink, the craving." Five years later,
withdrawal. Yet in Spain, Israel and Mexico, a
Catrambone is still soberand the medication
small band of clinicians are working together
that helped her is gaining new stature as a
doctors check their patients into intensive care
naltrexone's maker announced that the Food
units, place them under heavy sedation to
and Drug Administration has approved it as a
shield them from pain, then use naltrexone to
chemical treatment for alcoholism the first one
induce “ultrarapid detoxification." Instead of
shaking, sweating and retching for 10 days or
mavericks are now claiming that their own
more, the recipients purportecl1y go home
naltrexone regimen can get heroin addicts
clean after a brief hospital stay. Though only
through withdrawal in a matter of hours,
11 cases have been described in the medical
enabling them to start new lives the next day.
literature, CITA, the Spanish based firm that
Caveats abound, but as one addiction specialist
exults, the drug has "amazing social
Quick detox: An addict takes the cure Fast track: The procedure isn't performed
in the United States, but a few Americans are now traveling to Mexico to gamble $10,000
stayed dry for three months, compared with
on it. Last week it was "Monica’s” turn. On
learned 20 years ago that it could rob drugs
just 23 percent of those receiving counseling
Sunday night, the 22-year-old heroin addict
like heroin and morphine of their pleasurable
and a placebo. And when the naltrexone entered the Hospital Las Américas in
effects, by covering the receptors they attach
takers did revert to drinking, they were only
to in the nervous system. The DuPont Merck
half as likely to drink heavily. In short, the
afternoon she was ready to start treatment. As
Pharmaceutical Co. started marketing the drug
drug enabled them to slip without falling.
as Trexan in 1984, after studies showed it
On the strength of those findings, DuPont
others drew bile from her stomach, Dr. David
could he1p heroin addicts avoid relapse once
Merck is now rechristening the drug ReVia,
they had been through withdrawal. Since then,
and promoting it as a dual-purpose abstinence
booster. With some 11 million Americans unconsciously while medical workers moni-
problem drinkers have just as much to gain
suffering from alcoholism, demand for the tored her heart rate and blood pressure. And
from the treatment. In a 1992 Yale study of
drug should now soar. For all the excitement,
104 alcoholics, for example, 51 percent of
though, no one is calling naltrexone a cure,
naltrexone no longer affected her, the doctors
finishing the process, the young woman awoke briefly, demanding to know why no one had started the treat
The Sobriety Pill Doctors have long prescribed naltrexone (right) to he1p former drag users stay clean, but other uses are now emerging: For alcoholics: By shielding the nervous
system from alcohol's pleasurable effects,
daily doses of the drug can he1p problem
if "Monica" receives support, and
a daily dose of naltrexone, she could someday tell a story like
For addicts: In an ongoing experiment, clinicians in Spain, Israel and Mexico are using naltrexone to speed current drug addicts through the harrowing process of
Direktion Recht – Sportgerichtsbarkeit – Finanzen An die Vereine der Bundesliga, 2. Bundesliga, 3. Liga Regionalliga, Frauen-Bundesliga und A- und B-Junioren-Bundesligen WADA-Liste verbotener Wirkstoffe und verbotener Methoden gültig ab 1.1.2012 als Anlage überlassen wir Ihnen die neue WADA-Verbotsliste 2012, die am 1.1.2012 in Kraft tritt, im englischen Originaltext (gültig in Zweife
ALPHASCREEN GUANYLA AlphaScreen cGMP Phosphodiesterase AssayUsing AlphaScreen cGMP Supplement with Anti-cGMP Antibody TION NOTE TE CYCLASES Figure 1. Principle of the AlphaScreen cGMP PDE assay. The cGMP PDE enzyme depletesthe unlabeled cGMP competitor, allowing the two AlphaScreen beads to bind via the anti-cGMP antibody interaction. As a result, an intense AlphaScreen signal is