UCLA’s Novel Approach to Methamphetamine Addiction 

UCLA's Novel Approach to Methamphetamine Addiction. Credit | AAP
UCLA's Novel Approach to Methamphetamine Addiction. Credit | AAP

United States: Methamphetamine use disorders remain on a spree, with fatal overdoses without a single substance in the FDA’s arsenal to address the problem. 

However, there’s a brand new experimental two-drug therapy reported by UCLA scientists. 

More about the finding 

The study formulated by the researcher Dr Michael Li, an assistant professor in residence of family medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA highlighted that there are significant implications in the pharmacological treatment for methamphetamine use disorder though he also noted that there have been cases of overdoses involving methamphetamine. 

The findings of the study were published in the journal Addiction on June 10. 

UCLA's Novel Approach to Methamphetamine Addiction. Credit | FBI
UCLA’s Novel Approach to Methamphetamine Addiction. Credit | FBI

How was the trial conducted? 

The results for drug-free urine samples increased from 27 percent among the participants who received a combination of strongly opposed injectable naltrexone plus extended-release oral medication buproprion. Non-positive tests increased to 11 percent, at the same time, in a control group, as US News reported. 

Another substance that has attracted more attention in the market today is methamphetamine, and in the year 2020, the number of users in this category stood at approximately 34 million as compared to approximately 33 million in one calendar year a decade ago. 

Overdose cases in the US 

Over the course of the year, overdose deaths in the United States rose to 5 times higher in 2018 from what it was in 2012. Similarly, they found that the numerical count of the cases of overdose also rose with it, and so did the death rates resulting from overdose of the drug. 

UCLA's Novel Approach to Methamphetamine Addiction. Credit | AP
UCLA’s Novel Approach to Methamphetamine Addiction. Credit | AP

Other clinical trials that the National Institute on Drug Abuse Clinical Trials Network has been involved in are those trials that are expected to help in comparing the effectiveness of treatment solutions for the use of methamphetamine. 

ADAPT-2 trial was conducted from May 2017 to July 2019 at eight study centres that included adult solid organ transplant recipients. 

There were more than 400 participants from which 109 patients were treated with the experimental drug therapy in the first phase. 

That showed that the combo was effective on six-week-olds. 

He said the new findings are from the second phase of the trial, which was conducted over a longer period. The drug tests were conducted after the control phase at week 7, after line BL6 at week 12, and at the end of BL6 and control phases at weeks 13 and 16, respectively. 

UCLA's Novel Approach to Methamphetamine Addiction. Credit | Getty Images
UCLA’s Novel Approach to Methamphetamine Addiction. Credit | Getty Images

However, some researchers said that more evaluation is required in order to ascertain if the treatment goes beyond the 12-week confines and produces a dramatic decrease in the consumption of those substances. 

According to the researchers, “Prior stimulant use disorder treatment trials suggest that change in use is gradual [consistent with our findings], unlikely to result in sustained abstinence in a typical 12-week trial, and dependent on treatment duration,” as US News reported. 

“This warrants future clinical trials to quantify changes in [methamphetamine] use beyond 12 weeks and to identify the optimal duration of treatment with this medication,” they continued.