I don't know how I missed this one. It's a very large multi-center study with 600 initial subjects where they tested targeted nalmefene for 7 months. The results were statistically significant and positive but IMO unimpressive. The nalmefene group reduce their consumption by about 40% in 7 months.

This one's too big for me to try to cut and paste it out of PDF form so if someone would like to offer up a domain I'll upload it so anyone can get it.

Stick it on Rapidshare and provide a link. It'll remain there for 60 days at no cost to you or any downloader.

Bob

http://rapidshare.com/files/320711475/nalmefene.pdf.html

Thanks bob!

Sure thing. I just downloaded it, but I can't read it since I just upgraded my hard disk and loaded Windows 7 (64 bit). I have yet to pull over all my data and apps from my Vista disk. Anyway, don't even have Acrobat reader installed yet, but I'll get to it this morning. I'm on vacation this week so I have lots of time.

Bob

Hi Loop,

Thanks for sharing the article. My opinion however is a bit different.

The nalmefene group _reported_ reduction of their consumption by almost 47% after 7 months but all the reduction occurred in 1 month. The placebo group reported 37% reduction after 7 months.
Unfortunately the only thing that this study shows is that there's a huge difference between what people say and what they do. When a carbohydrate-deficient transferrin level was measured it showed reduction for the nalmefene group from 3.3 to 3.1 vs 3.4 to 3.3. Does it sound promising?

One optimistic thing is that more people from the placebo group left the study because they didn’t see any improvement. Besides (if this helps) I know many studies that say obese people don't lose weight on low-carb but I personally don't know anybody who doesn't lose at least 0.5 kg per week.

testing...I have posted on 2 or 3 other threads for mere seconds and get a "time's up" message. What's up widdat??

Have to read this carefully yet but the first impression is that the effects were real but moderate. Looking at the "cured" list and the original 2001 paper, it looks like TSM might be more effective for "moderate" drinkers (an average problem drinker in Sinclair's 2001 study sounds like a moderate drinker to me )
Is it possible that the subjects in this one were heavier drinkers / simply more addicted?

On the other hand, while browsing recently, I came across a rat study (published few years ago) which is somewhat unsetting - if true and if applicable to humans. In brief, it went like TSM with rats and experimental group did drink considerably less. So far so good. However, within 3-4 days after withdrawal of NAL, the experimental group started to drink a lot more - exceeding levels of control group and exceeding its own pre-NAL levels. Can't find it again right now because the key words are too generic and there are too many hits returned. I will find it if anyone is interested.

Ortho -- Sinclair found the same thing in his rat studies. No time to look it up but it's in the shrinkrap podcast and in Eskapa's book. The rats respond to nal (i.e. show extinction) in days rather than weeks or months. And they re-learn (i.e. get re-addicted) drinking in days when not on nal. It takes weeks or months for humans but it is certain to happen. That's why it's essential that we always take nal before drinking -- always.

Many of us who were heavy drinkers find it takes far longer than the three-to-six month period for significant changes. And many of us, while pleased with the reduction in our consumption, are far from "cured" as Eskapa defines it in his book, after several months.

For me, it helps to remember is that Sinclair found his subjects continued to report a reduction in craving for as long as three years after the onset of treatment.