Anti-smoking pill may aid alcoholics

Pfizer Inc.’s anti-smoking pill may help alcoholics stop drinking, UC San Francisco researchers reported Tuesday in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Chantix, or varenicline, regulates the body’s levels of dopamine, a brain chemical associated with addiction. Rats that were trained to drink alcohol received the drug in doses similar to those used for smoking cessation in humans. The rats given the medicine drank less while under treatment and afterward. They also had fewer relapses to alcohol dependence after being removed from the drug.