Anti-smoking Medication Reduces Alcohol Dependence
By Damilola Seriki at June 18, 2013
The saying “kill two birds with one stone” could be getting a whole new meaning after a news release from the National Institutes of Health or NIH for short. There was a recent study performed by the NIH under the direction of Dr. Raye Z Litten that compared the inter-dependency of anti-smoking medication and dependency of alcohol.
The study proved to be an amazing success and the results have led the team to conclude that with a patient taking anti-smoking medication they are also lowering their dependency of alcohol, if applicable. The study was primarily based off of a drug called varenicline, or more commonly known as Chantix, which has been proven to help people reduce and even quit the nasty habit of smoking cigarettes.People in the study showed that as they were taking more of the varenicline or Chantix, that they also seemed to drink less than if they weren’t. Of course we can also assume that the inter-dependency also deals with ease of access to alcohol. In my perspective someone that was trying to quit cigarettes (thus why they are taking varenicline in the first place) may intentionally avoid places like bars, lounges, and other venues that serve alcohol. In order to fully finish this research there would need to be another study to show the inter-connectivity between smoking cigarettes and alcohol. If the correlation is high, then it would make perfect sense that the act and mentality of wanting to quit smoking would also persuade a person to drink less, not the varenicline.
This was a great study and the team has done an excellent job. Hopefully they will follow this release up with some more studies and research on the topic. Be sure to leave your thoughts below in the comments section.
LINK :
1. http://scicraze.com/2013/06/18/anti-smoking-medication-reduces-alcohol-dependence/
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