A U.S. government-funded study has provided evidence of hopeful treatment for people struggling with methamphetamine use. The study found that people receiving combination drug therapy were more likely to avoid the drug and reported improvements in their lives than those receiving standard and placebo support. The results are even more encouraging because methamphetamine use disorder is especially difficult to treat.
In recent years, the crisis of drug overdose has only worsened. There were more than 70,000 overdose-related deaths in 2019, and 2020 is expected to be worse, thanks in part to the covid-19 pandemic. Much of the focus on the crisis has been on opioids, but it has become clear that abuse of other drugs (including stimulants such as methamphetamine) is also on the rise.
While it is difficult to find help for many people who have drug addiction problems, there are treatments available for opioid use and alcohol use disorder, as well as for quitting smoking. These include medications that reduce cravings and withdrawal symptoms that can be combined with counseling and therapy. To date, however, there are no known drugs to reduce these symptoms specifically for methamphetamine use.
This new study, published On Wednesday, the New England Journal of Medicine tested a combination of two drugs: bupropion, an antidepressant and smoking cessation aid, as well as naltrexone, which is used to help treat the disorder. ‘opioids and alcohol.
The trial included 403 volunteers with moderate to severe methamphetamine use disorder who were randomized to the treatment group or placebo. A second round of the trial, with people from the placebo group who did not respond to treatment, was conducted with 225 volunteers. People in the treatment group were given an injection of naltrexone every three weeks and a daily pill of bupropion, and were monitored for six weeks. Participants in both groups met weekly with physicians and received advice; their urine was also tested for methamphetamine.
G / O Media may receive a commission
In both trials, the percentage of people who responded to treatment (defined as a negative methamphetamine result at least three out of four times) was low for both groups. But it was noticeably higher for people in the drug combination. On average, 13.6% of those taking bupropion and naltrexone responded to treatment, compared with 2.5% of people taking placebo. In the surveys conducted by the volunteers, those in the experimental group appeared to report fewer cravings and a greater improvement in quality of life over the duration of the trial, although researchers warn that these findings are less certain. There were no serious treatment-related adverse effects, but users showed a higher risk of nausea, vomiting, and constipation compared with the placebo group.
The benefits of this combination therapy are probably modest at best. But the authors note that the level of improvement observed in this study is roughly similar to other treatments established for some mental health and substance use disorders, including unhealthy alcohol dependence. If nothing else, it could represent the first evidence-based drug for methamphetamine use disorder, a serious illness that can lead to long-term health complications such as heart and brain damage, as well as hallucinations, paranoia and caries, and severe tooth loss.
“This breakthrough shows that medical treatment for methamphetamine use disorder can help improve patient outcomes,” said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, who helped run the study. , in a statement released by the federal agency.
While the study paves the way for this combination therapy to be widely used for these patients, future studies will need to test how effective it can be in more real environments and over longer periods of time, the authors wrote. .