{"id":5398,"date":"2026-04-22T12:20:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T16:20:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/?p=5398"},"modified":"2026-04-22T12:20:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T16:20:30","slug":"dutasteride-as-a-promising-option-to-decrease-heavy-drinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/2026\/04\/22\/dutasteride-as-a-promising-option-to-decrease-heavy-drinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Dutasteride as a Promising Option to Decrease Heavy Drinking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Current pharmaceutical options to decrease heavy alcohol use are limited; dutasteride,\u00a0a\u00a05-alpha-reductase inhibitor\u2014normally used for prostate conditions\u2014might be a good candidate. Researchers conducted a 12-week parallel-group randomized controlled trial among adults aged \u226535 years with alcohol use disorder (AUD) and heavy alcohol use* who wanted to decrease or stop their drinking. Participants were randomized to receive either dutasteride 1 mg daily or a placebo.\u00a0All participants received bi-weekly medical management.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Participants (N=167) were 95 percent White and 44 percent female; the average age was 56 years.<\/li>\n<li>Compared with placebo, participants receiving dutasteride experienced\u00a0greater reductions in the number of heavy drinking days (40 percent decrease with dutasteride versus 23 percent decrease with placebo).<\/li>\n<li>Participants receiving dutasteride also consumed fewer drinks per week, compared with placebo (32 percent decrease\u00a0with dutasteride versus\u00a016 percent with placebo).<\/li>\n<li>Analyses stratified by sex showed statistically significant effects in men but not in women; women receiving placebo had a greater drinking reduction than men receiving placebo.<\/li>\n<li>There were no serious adverse events and no study withdrawal due to side effects.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>* Defined as \u226524 drinks in a week for men and \u226518 drinks in a week for women with at least two heavy drinking days in a week.<\/p>\n<p><em>Comments<\/em>: Among people with AUD with a drinking reduction goal, dutasteride\u00a0was well tolerated and significantly reduced heavy drinking and total alcohol use, especially in\u00a0the men in this cohort, which was predominantly White. Effects were non-significant among women, but women in the placebo group showed a greater decrease. Effect sizes were comparable to currently approved medications. Further study is warranted, especially among racially diverse populations.<\/p>\n<p>Nicolas Bertholet, MD, MSc<\/p>\n<p><em>Reference<\/em>: Covault J, Tennen H, Feinn R. <a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/41208092\/\">Dutasteride as a treatment to support reduced drinking: a randomized placebo-controlled trial<\/a>. <em>J Addict Med<\/em>. 2025 [Epub ahead of print]. doi: 10.1097\/ADM.0000000000001609.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Current pharmaceutical options to decrease heavy alcohol use are limited; dutasteride,\u00a0a\u00a05-alpha-reductase inhibitor\u2014normally used for prostate conditions\u2014might be a good candidate. Researchers conducted a 12-week parallel-group randomized controlled trial among adults aged \u226535 years with alcohol use disorder (AUD) and heavy alcohol use* who wanted to decrease or stop their drinking. Participants were randomized to receive [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11248,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[161],"tags":[76],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5398"}],"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\/11248"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5398"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5399,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5398\/revisions\/5399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}