Scientists use fake bar to test anti-alcohol drug
Scientists at America's National Institutes of Health hope a hormone could cut drink cravings
The tequila sure looks real, so do the beer taps. Inside the hospital at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), researchers are testing a new treatment to help heavy drinkers cut back - using a replica of a fully stocked bar.
Sitting in the dimly lit bar-laboratory should cue the volunteers' brains to crave a drink, and help determine if the experimental pill counters that urge.
True, there's no skunky bar odour; the bottles are filled with coloured water. The real alcohol is locked in the hospital pharmacy, ready to send over for the extra temptation of smell - and to test how safe the drug is if people drink anyway.
"The goal is to create almost a real-world environment, but to control it very strictly," said lead researcher Dr Lorenzo Leggio, who is testing how a hormone named ghrelin that sparks people's appetite for food also affects their desire for alcohol, and if blocking it helps.
Amid all the yearly resolutions to quit, alcohol disorders affect about 17 million Americans, and only a small fraction receive treatment. There's no one-size-fits-all therapy, and the NIH is spurring a hunt for new medications that target the brain's addiction cycle in different ways - and to find out which options work best in which drinkers.
"Alcoholics come in many forms," explained Dr George Koob, director of NIH's National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.