Australian study finds plant amino acid helps ease smoking

Australian study finds plant amino acid helps ease smoking addiction; could be tested on ice addicts

Clarissa Thorpe Sun 15 Mar 2015, 12:25 PM AEDT

N-acetylcysteine or NAC is usually found as an amino acid in leafy green vegetables.

ABC News: Clarissa Thorpe

Australian researchers want to trial an amino acid usually found in vegetables on smoking addicts after positive results in a small overseas study.
A recent Australian-Brazilian study of heavy smokers who took N-acetylcysteine or NAC tablets found a drop in tobacco use among highly addicted smokers.

Researcher Michael Berk from Deakin University in Victoria said the naturally occurring plant substance produced surprising results in the pilot group of 34 people.

"What we found was a significant reduction in smoking in people taking N-acetylcysteine and much higher quit rates in people taking NAC, than those taking a placebo," he said.
"This was gratifying, but whenever you do a small scale study you don't shout eureka, because we need to look at the next step and how to improve the quality of the evidence.

"So we are absolutely going to do that with a bigger, better, more robust study and also look at what other clues from the research could be followed up with other different studies."

N-acetylcysteine is commonly found in leafy green vegetables, however researchers created doses for the smoking study that were much higher than in nature.

The fact NAC was a naturally occurring substance was part of its appeal for researchers because the risk of medical side effects was seen as low.

"It is widely available in medications now," Professor Berk said.
"It is already in use in Australia as a treatment for paracetamol overdose and it is also used as a kidney protector in people who are having x-rays with dyes and it is used in an over-the-counter cough syrup in Europe for children.

"And it has been studied for a wide variety of indications, and also studied overseas for its impact on cocaine and cannabis users."

Trialling NAC as a treatment for ice addiction

Professor Berk has teamed with Dr Rebecca McKetin from the Australian National University (ANU) to look at whether methamphetamine or ice addiction could also be treated with NAC.

Photo Dr McKetin talks to the Mount Gambier Mayor Andrew Lee at their community ice forum last month.

Supplied: City of Mount Gambier

"One of the greatest problems with methamphetamine or ice is that they are very few if any affective pharmacotherapeutic treatments," he said.

"Yes, there are some psychological and social treatments but there are very few medications available."

Dr McKetin has begun writing grant applications to hold a follow up ice study in Australia.
"The reason we think it might work for ice use is because its effects on drug addiction are generic across different drug types," she said.

"So this is a treatment that can alleviate cravings for various different drug types so it should have a similar affect on methamphetamine drug use.

"And N-acetylcysteine also has another property which protects the brain against the toxic effects of methamphetamine use and we hope it might be able to reduce affects such as hallucinations, paranoia and agitation in heavy users."

Researchers believe it would be easy to administer NAC as vitamin-like pill during any study on ice addiction.