Scientists have developed a treatment that reduced boozing in alcoholic vervet monkeys, potentially offering a solution for humans with drinking problems.
Vervet monkeys are a key species for researchers due to several similar characteristics, including at times a preference for alcohol - having even been known to steal drinks from customers in bars.
New research carried out by scientists from the University of Iowa and the University of Copenhagen, has uncovered that an analogue to a hormone provided by the liver called fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) successfully suppresses drinking in vervet monkeys.
Mammals began consuming alcohol from fermented fruit long before humans developed methods to produce alcohol from distillation. Given that excessive alcohol consumption negatively impacts health and survival, it is not surprising that numerous physiological systems have evolved to sense and regulate alcohol consumption in mammals. The scientists have developed a new way to therapeutically target the neural pathways that contribute to how mammals regulate their alcohol consumption. The vervet monkey population is comprised of alcohol avoiders, moderate alcohol drinkers, and a group of heavy drinkers.
"The heavy drinkers will consume alcohol to intoxication, if possible, thereby offering a preclinical model of alcohol drinking that may more closely reflect aspects of harmful drinking in humans," the researchers stated in the journal Cell Metabolism.
Twenty male vervet monkeys with this innate preference for alcohol were given access to booze for four hours a day for four days to establish their baseline drinking behavior.
After this was established, they were split into two groups, one which received a placebo and another which received the new FGF21 analogue treatment. The monkeys who received the therapeutic treatment drank 50 percent less than they did at their baseline, indicating it can "robustly suppress alcohol consumption".
