THE LEDGER-STAR 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Tuesday, January 17, 1995              TAG: 9501170455
SECTION: FRONT                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: LOS ANGELES TIMES 
                                             LENGTH: Medium:   55 lines

NEW DRUG OK'D TO TREAT ALCOHOLISM THE FIRST IN 47 YEARS, IT'S BEING HAILED AS THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA.

The first new drug in 47 years to treat alcoholism has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has announced.

Unlike Antabuse, the currently used drug which makes the user severely nauseated when he or she uses alcohol, naltrexone works by blocking both the craving for alcohol and the pleasure of getting high.

``This is the beginning of a new era . . . in alcoholism treatment,'' said Dr. Enoch Gordis, director of of the institute, which funded testing of the drug. ``This is not a `magic bullet,' but naltrexone promises to help many patients in their struggle against a chronic relapsing disease.''

Results from an ongoing clinical trial to be released today at a New York news conference show that when combined with conventional behavioral modification, naltrexone allows as many as three-quarters of alcoholics to avoid a relapse, compared with fewer than half of those who received counseling alone.

``(We) now have a novel medical approach available that significantly increases abstinence rates and seems to reduce alcohol craving,'' said Dr. Joseph Volpicelli of the University of Pennsylvania.

Alcoholism is by far the most common drug abuse problem in the United States. Nearly 11 million Americans suffer from alcoholism, and as many as a third of all Americans are touched by it through a close relative or acquaintance. At least 100,000 deaths are associated with alcohol abuse each year, either from cirrhosis of the liver or from accidents caused by intoxication.

About 1 million American alcoholics seek help for their problem each year, but many drop out of treatment quickly, in part because their craving for alcohol is so great that they are unable to resist the temptation. Of those who stay in the programs, more than half typically suffer a relapse within a few months.

Naltrexone was developed by the DuPont Co., now the DuPont Merck Pharmaceutical Co., for the treatment of heroin abuse and approved for that use in 1984.

It targets the same receptors in the brain that produce feelings of pleasure when heroin or other opiates bind to them, but does not itself produce a ``high'' and is not habit-forming.

Although alcohol does not bind to those brain receptors, studies in animals, and now in humans, show that naltrexone works equally well against it.

KEYWORDS: ALCOHOLISM DRUG TREATMENT by CNB