Herbal tonic cuts hamsters' alcohol use.An herb long used in traditional Chinese medicine Traditional Chinese Medicine Definition Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an ancient and still very vital holistic system of health and healing, based on the notion of harmony and balance, and employing the ideas of moderation and prevention. to treat alcoholism contains two substances that dampen the fondness for alcohol displayed by a particular strain of hamster, two biochemists report in the Nov. 1 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, usually referred to as PNAS, is the official journal of the United States National Academy of Sciences. . Further study of these chemicals may produce new drugs to help treat human alcohol abusers, assert Wing-Ming Keung and Bert L. Vallee of Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is one of the graduate schools of Harvard University. It is a prestigious American medical school located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. in Boston. Keung and Vallee studied Syrian Golden hamsters, which drink large quantities of alcohol when given the chance. A group of these hamsters had continuous access to both water and alcohol. When animals received injections of an extract of the herbal elixir, taken from the root of the kudzu vine kudzu vine Fast-growing, twining, perennial, woody vine (Pueraria lobata, or P. thunbergiana) belonging to the pea family (see legume). Transplanted from its native China and Japan to North America in the 1870s as an attractive ornamental that could be planted on , their alcohol intake over six days was half that observed when they received injections of an inactive substance for six days. Two chemical constituents of the extract - daidzin and daidzein similarly squelched alcohol consumption. The ways in which these two compounds diminished hamsters' hankering for alcohol remain unknown, the scientists say. Daidzin and daidzein apparently interfere with the breakdown of alcohol in the body, they note. Other evidence suggests that naltrexone naltrexone /nal·trex·one/ (nal-trek´son) an opioid antagonist used as the hydrochloride salt in treatment of opioid or alcohol abuse. nal·trex·one n. An endorphin and narcotic antagonist. , a drug that blocks naturally occurring opiates in the brain, helps deter uncontrolled alcohol use (SN: 11/21/92, p.341). |
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