N-acetyl cysteine (NAC), a common amino acid found in health food stores, may be the key to curing gambling addictions. Researchers at the University of Minnesota said a study found that NAC boosts a brain neurochemical called glutamate that is often unbalanced in the brains of people suffering from addictions.
A small double-blind study found that 83 percent of volunteers who took the amino acid reported fewer impulses to gamble.
“When people responded, which was the majority of people, they responded quite robustly,” said Dr. Jon Grant, the study’s lead investigator. “People were saying this was getting rid of their urges to gamble. They felt more in control of their gambling behavior.”
Most of the people in the placebo group, however, said their urges got worse and they returned to gambling. “Only 29 percent of those on placebo were able to maintain any of their improvement that they had gotten previously,” Grant said. “So this told us that there was some type of effect going on from this amino acid.
If additional studies also show that NAC is effective in controlling the urge to gamble, patients would have a cheaper alternative – and perhaps one with fewer side effects – to pharmaceutical drugs.
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