{"id":238,"date":"2014-03-01T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-01T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jaydub.cms-devl.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/2014\/01\/01\/gabapentin-can-decrease-heavy-drinking-and-increase-abstinence-for-patients-with-alcohol-dependence\/"},"modified":"2017-01-31T11:45:10","modified_gmt":"2017-01-31T16:45:10","slug":"gabapentin-can-decrease-heavy-drinking-and-increase-abstinence-for-patients-with-alcohol-dependence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/2014\/03\/01\/gabapentin-can-decrease-heavy-drinking-and-increase-abstinence-for-patients-with-alcohol-dependence\/","title":{"rendered":"Gabapentin  Can Decrease Heavy Drinking and Increase Abstinence for Patients with Alcohol Dependence"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"research-summary-body\">\n                    <!-- InstanceBeginEditable name=\"contents\" --><\/p>\n<p>Existing pharmacotherapies for alcohol  use disorders have modest efficacy and there are few choices. Researchers  tested gabapentin, 900 mg and 1800 mg three times a day, versus placebo, in a  randomized trial. The 150 adults had alcohol dependence, were abstinent for at  least 3 days, did not use other drugs or have significant comorbidity, and were  recruited by advertisements. Primary outcomes were ascertained for 97% of  participants.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>At  12 weeks, there was a linear dose effect, and abstinence (17% versus 4%) and no  heavy drinking (45% versus 23%) were more common in the 1800 mg dose group, although  95% confidence intervals for these effects overlapped with the lower dose and  with effects in the placebo group. <\/li>\n<li>Findings  beyond consumption (such as sleep outcomes) were difficult to interpret because  of substantial loss to follow-up.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!-- InstanceEndEditable --><\/p>\n<div class=\"research-summary-footnotes-1\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<!-- InstanceBeginEditable name=\"footnotes-1\" --><!-- InstanceEndEditable -->\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"research-summary-comments\">Comments:<\/h2>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<!-- InstanceBeginEditable name=\"comments\" -->This trial appears to provide proof of the concept that gabapentin can  reduce consumption among people with alcohol dependence (corresponding in <em>DSM-5<\/em> to moderate to severe alcohol use  disorder). Although many clinicians may be eager to have another treatment  option, careful subject selection (not in a general medical setting), the abuse  potential of gabapentin, and the overlapping confidence intervals across the  study groups suggest that widespread use of the treatment for dependence should  await a larger effectiveness trial.<!-- InstanceEndEditable --><br \/>\n                    <cite><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<!-- InstanceBeginEditable name=\"name\" -->Richard Saitz MD, MPH<!-- InstanceEndEditable --><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/cite><\/p>\n<div class=\"research-summary-footnotes\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<!-- InstanceBeginEditable name=\"footnotes\" --><!-- InstanceEndEditable -->\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<h2>Reference:<\/h2>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<!-- InstanceBeginEditable name=\"reference\" -->Mason BJ, Quello S, Goodell V, et al. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/24190578\">Gabapentin Treatment for Alcohol Dependence:  A Randomized Clinical Trial<\/a>. <em>JAMA Intern  Med<\/em>. 2014;174(1):70\u201377.<!-- InstanceEndEditable -->\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Existing pharmacotherapies for alcohol use disorders have modest efficacy and there are few choices. Researchers tested gabapentin, 900 mg and 1800 mg three times a day, versus placebo, in a randomized trial. The 150 adults had alcohol dependence, were abstinent for at least 3 days, did not use other drugs or have significant comorbidity, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11272,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[33],"tags":[76],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2158,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions\/2158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}