Study: Psoriasis Medicine May Help Treat Alcohol Use Disorder

People who took apremilast reduced their alcohol intake by more than half — from five drinks per day to two.

Apremilast may be an “incredibly promising” treatment for alcohol use disorder, according to a new study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

On average, the people who took apremilast reduced their alcohol intake by more than half — from five drinks per day to two.

“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” says co-senior author Angela Ozburn, Ph.D., associate professor of behavioral neuroscience in the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) School of Medicine and a research biologist with the Portland VA Health Care System, in a news release.

The lead study author is Kolter Grigsby, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the Ozburn laboratory at OHSU.

Beginning in 2015, Ozburn and collaborators searched a genetic database looking for compounds likely to counteract the expression of genes known to be linked to heavy alcohol use. Apremilast appeared to be a promising candidate.

They then tested it in two unique animal models that have a genetic of risk for excessive drinking, as well as in other strains of mice at laboratories across the country. In each case, apremilast reduced drinking among a variety of models predisposed to mild to heavy alcohol use. They found that apremilast triggered an increase in activity in the nucleus accumbens, the region of the brain involved in controlling alcohol intake.

Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, then tested the psoriasis medicine in people.

The Scripps team conducted a double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical proof-of-concept study involving 51 people who were assessed over 11 days of treatment.

“Apremilast’s large effect size on reducing drinking, combined with its good tolerability in our participants, suggests it is an excellent candidate for further evaluation as a novel treatment for people with alcohol use disorder,” says co-senior author Barbara Mason, Ph.D., Pearson Family professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine at Scripps.

The clinical study involved people with alcohol use disorder who weren’t seeking any form of treatment, and Mason predicts that apremilast may be even more effective among people who are motivated to reduce their alcohol consumption.

“It’s imperative for more clinical trials to be done on people seeking treatment,” Ozburn says. “In this study, we saw that apremilast worked in mice. It worked in different labs, and it worked in people. This is incredibly promising for treatment of addiction in general.”