Pill That Takes Away the Desire to Drink!

Friday, 30 September 2011, 17:10 IST
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London: Coming soon: A pill that will take away your desire to getting drunk on the favourite tipple, say scientists. An international team claims to be developing the "stay sober" pill which may spare the blushes of those who get drunk too easily by limiting the effects of alcohol on their brains, the 'British Journal of Pharmacology' reported. In an experiment, mice given the drug did not even get tipsy, despite being fed enough alcohol to make them stumble and fall over. Now, the American and Australian scientists say that their research may pave the way for a tablet to stop people from making fools of themselves on a night out. Their research focused on the way alcohol affects glial cells, which make up 90 per cent of the brain. They play a crucial role in the immune system, helping to fight infections such as meningitis. In the experiment, shutting off this immune response produced a remarkable effect - it stopped the mice who were given alcohol from getting drunk, British newspaper the 'Daily Mail' reported. Not only were the animals' reflexes far better, they also found it much easier to balance and walk than animals whose brain immune cells were allowed to work normally. "When a mouse gets drunk, it is quite similar to a human that's drunk. It can't work its motor co-ordination properly. If you stop these immune cells from working, the animals didn't get drunk," Mark Hutchinson at University of Adelaide, who led the study, was quoted as saying.
Source: IANS