Baclofen has been shown to be as effective as diazepam in uncomplicated alcohol withdrawal syndrome.[5] An Italian study showed that it was effective in promoting alcohol abstinence in patients with severe liver cirrhosis.[6]
[edit] As a Treatment for Addictions
Dr. Olivier Ameisen, a French-American associate professor of medicine and a cardiologist at Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University, reported in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism that he successfully used Baclofen to completely suppress his own alcohol addiction. In his paper, he urged for randomized trials of high-dose baclofen to be conducted to test the therapeutic model he had proposed. He renewed his call for clinical trials in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). His therapeutic model was reproduced by Dr. William Bucknam who published a case report in Alcohol and Alcoholism and by Roberta Agabio et al. who published another case in Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology.Dr Ameisen believes based on his own experience and other anecdotal evidence, that Baclofen acts on some mechanism within the brains of addicts to suppress cravings brought on by addiction to various substances such as alcohol, cocaine and heroin etc. Clinical trials have not yet been conducted.
Ameisen, who currently is a visiting professor of medicine at State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, authored Le Dernier Verre (The Last Glass, retitled The End of My Addiction in English) to inform public opinion and physicians. [7][8]
[edit] Mechanism of action
Baclofen produces its effect via modulating the GABAB receptor, similar to the drug GHB which also has the same mechanism of action and also similar effects. However, there are some pharmacological differences in that baclofen appears to have reduced abuse and dependence potential.[9][10] The modulation of the GABAB receptor is what produces baclofen's range of therapeutic properties.
[edit] History
Historically baclofen was designed to be a drug for epilepsy in the 1920s. The effect on epilepsy was disappointing but it was found that in certain patients spasticity decreased. Baclofen was and is still given orally with variable effects. In severely affected children, the oral dose is so high that side effects appear and the treatment loses its benefit. How and when baclofen came to be used in the spinal sac is not really clear but this is now an established method for the treatment of spasticity in many conditions.
Recently, based on Ameisen's therapeutic model, some trials have been conducted in using Baclofen to treat cocaine addiction. While no final study has been released, people have said once they took Baclofen they felt their desire for cocaine plummet almost overnight. There is a report that baclofen has beneficial role in the management of reflux disease.[11]
