In brief: Herbal treatment he... Health Article

In brief

Women, especially, have good reason to keep an eye on how much they drink. We become intoxicated at lower levels of alcohol consumption than men do, and we’re quicker to develop alcohol-related problems. Alcohol in moderation—for women that means one drink a day—offers certain health benefits, but too often one drink turns into two or more. Research suggests that every additional drink per day a woman takes raises her risk of breast cancer by as much as 10%.

Alcohol dependence is a serious medical problem that requires professional help and usually complete abstinence from alcohol. But for women who are concerned about the occasional one-drink-too-many and would like to cut back, a relatively simple aid may soon be available. Harvard Medical School scientists have found that an herbal substance with no apparent side effects dampens the desire for alcohol.

Taking their cue from ancient Chinese medical texts and research on binge-drinking laboratory animals, investigators at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., examined the effects of an extract of kudzu root on alcohol consumption in humans. Kudzu is best known as an invasive plant that was introduced to the United States more than a century ago and is now displacing native vegetation in large areas of the South. In China, it’s better known as an herbal medicine for treating alcohol-related diseases and the effects of intoxication.

The research team, led by Dr. Scott E. Lukas, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, recruited 14 women and men to spend several 90-minute sessions drinking beer in a “laboratory” that resembled a small studio apartment and included a refrigerator stocked with beer. Subjects were left alone and free to drink up to six beers at each session. They were instructed to place their beers, between sips, on a table fitted with a hidden scale that tracked total consumption, the number of sips taken per beer, the time taken for each drink, and the amount of time between beers. The first session indicated how much each subject normally drank. Then participants were randomly assigned to take either kudzu extract or a placebo daily during the week before the next drinking session. In a different phase of the study, the treatments were reversed, so all participants eventually received both the kudzu extract and the placebo.

Kudzu made a big difference. Subjects who took kudzu extract drank about half as much, on average, as those taking the placebo—1.8 beers versus 3.5. The herbal extract also slowed the pace of drinking, with the kudzu group taking more and smaller sips. Kudzu didn’t curb the urge for a first beer, but it dampened enthusiasm for a second or third. There were no reported side effects, and analyses of blood, urine, and vital signs showed no changes. The McLean findings were published in the May 2005 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

It’s not clear why kudzu reduces alcohol intake. The researchers suspect that it prolongs or intensifies the effect of the first drink, thus delaying or reducing the urge to have another. The active ingredients in kudzu extract are the isoflavones puerarin, daidzin, and daidzein. Puerarin is used in Chinese medicine to increase blood flow to the heart and brain. Possibly kudzu shuttles alcohol to the brain faster, speeding up its action and lessening the desire to drink more. Put another way, kudzu may make you feel more satisfied with your first drink.

Kudzu supplements are available online and in stores, but Dr. Lukas cautions that these products are not the same preparation used in the McLean study. Most commercial preparations contain less than 1% isoflavones; the one used in the study contained 25%, divvied up in a specific way among the various isoflavones.

The long-term effects of taking kudzu are not known. Some isoflavones are phytoestrogens, which can have weak estrogenic effects in women and men. Still, according to Dr. Lukas, “Every type of drinker could achieve some benefit from kudzu,” especially since it appears to have no short-term side effects. Kudzu might help reduce daily drinking in heavy imbibers who aren’t alcohol-dependent or candidates for a treatment center. It could be a useful adjunct to Alcoholics Anonymous or to medications such as acamprosate (Campral) and naltrexone (ReVia), which help drinkers avoid relapses or resist triggers to drink. By adding kudzu, doctors might be able to reduce the dose of these drugs and thus their side effects, which may include upset stomach and anxiety.