Researchers Find Link Between Stress Hormone, Alcohol Dependence

One of the most perplexing questions about substance abuse and addiction is “why?” Why are some people capable of enjoying a drink or two in moderation, while others are compelled to abuse alcohol to the detriment of their personal and professional lives?

Why can some people experiment with drugs without ever developing dependence, while others become addicted almost immediately?

Why do some individuals respond well to addiction treatment and develop the ability to keep their disorder in check, while others continue to backslide into substance abuse?

While it remains unlikely that addiction experts will ever uncover a comprehensive answer for these and myriad related questions, recent research has provided valuable insights into one reason why some people are more prone to becoming dependent upon alcohol.

The answer to this specific “why,” it appears, is found in a stress-related hormone with the catchy moniker of corticotropin-releasing factor (or CRF).

The ‘Dark Side’ of Alcohol Addiction

According to a Jan. 26 article on the medical news website ScienceDaily, researchers with The Scripps Research Institute have identified CRF as a crucial component in the development of alcohol dependence in animals.

The Scripps research team reached this conclusion after six years of study, which included cellular studies and experiments on rats. Their efforts are expected to be published in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

“Our study explored what we call in the field ‘the dark side’ of alcohol addiction,” Marisa Roberto, who led the research, said in the ScienceDaily article. “That’s the compulsion to drink, not because it is pleasurable — which has been the focus of much previous research — but because it relieves the anxiety generated by abstinence and the stressful effects of withdrawal.”

About the Study

Highlights of the Scripps research included the following, ScienceDaily reported:

• The study evaluated the effectiveness of three different types of CRF antagonists, all of which showed an anti-alcohol effect.
• The Scripps researchers tested the three CRF antagonists (called antalarmin, NIH-3 and R121919) against alcohol in brain slices.
• The researchers also injected R121919 for 23 days into the brains of rats that had been exposed to conditions that would normally produce a dependence on alcohol.

When they received R121919, the “alcohol-dependent” rats began to act like their non-addicted counterparts — both groups ingested alcohol in only moderate amounts.

The study, Roberto said in a Jan. 27 UPI article, “represents an important step in understanding how the brain changes when it moves from a normal to an alcohol-dependent state.”

One Hormone, Many Effects

The recent Scripps research isn’t the first time that CRF has been the focus of scientific study.

As Shirley S. Wang noted in a Feb. 1 Wall Street Journal article, CRF has been associated with a range of conditions and disorders, including obesity, anxiety and Alzheimer’s Disease. The hormone, Wang reported, reacts with the body in the following manner:

The brain and other organs make CRF. It triggers a cascade of chemicals that ultimately produce cortisol and adrenaline and activate the body’s “fight or flight” response. Under chronic stress, cortisol breaks down muscle, suppresses the immune system and raises the risk of high blood pressure. …

[The suppression of CRF] reduces anxiety in animals, and several major drug companies are working to turn that into treatments for anxiety and depression. CRF blockers are also being developed for irritable bowel syndrome, since research has shown that stimulation of CRF receptors in the colon leads to diarrhea and pain.

Wang’s article, which focused on research into CRF’s potential role in treatment for type 2 diabetes, reported that the scientists who are pursuing that line of inquiry are interested not in suppressing the hormone, but in using it to trigger the production of insulin in humans while also encouraging the growth of pancreatic cells.

Possible Implications of the Research

Though the Scripps research into CRF’s role in alcohol dependence has yet to receive the widespread evaluation that will result from the study’s publication, experts have already begun to speculate on the ways that the team’s findings may impact general understanding of the nature of addiction.

For example, in a Jan. 27 article on the Psychology Today website, health psychologist Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., noted that the effectiveness of CRF suppression contradicts popularly held beliefs that addiction is merely a matter of seeking pleasure in unhealthy ways:

• With the stress hormone blocked, the rats consumed much less alcohol.
• This is a surprising finding if you subscribe to the giving-in-to-feel-good model of addiction. The CRF antagonist shouldn’t have reduced the pleasure of getting tipsy. And it certainly shouldn’t have made consuming alcohol unpleasant (the way that another drug for reducing alcohol intake, antabuse, does).

“The direct applications of this study are far from obvious,” McGonigal continued. “But for my money, I’d bet on stress-reduction interventions (whether psychological, pharmaceutical, or spiritual) as the foundation for any behavior change, and the best way to help develop resilience against future addictions.”