ArticleNeuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology2021
Effectiveness of spironolactone dispensation in reducing weekly alcohol use: a retrospective high-dimensional propensity score-matched cohort study.
Article in Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT05807139 (Spironolactone in Alcohol Use Disorder), which is not on this map. Cited by 13 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Spironolactone in Alcohol Use Disorder (SAUD): A Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Ascending Dose, Phase 1b Study
Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 20 citations in OpenAlex.
- Review
- Spironolactone and clinical outcomes in patients with alcohol use disorder and comorbid hypertension: a target trial emulation study.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Dissecting the role of mineralocorticoid receptors in binge-like alcohol drinking in mice: Finerenone as a potential pharmacotherapy.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists and Alcohol Use: A Real-Word Observational Study in a Large, Integrated Health Care System.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2026Article
- Alcohol and the endocrine system: A critical review of disruptions, potential mechanisms, and health implications.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2026Review
- Neuroendocrinology meets addiction: Emerging pharmacotherapies on the horizon.Journal of internal medicine · 2025Review
- Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, but not dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors, reduce alcohol intake.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2025Article
- Theoretical Frameworks and Mechanistic Aspects of Alcohol Addiction: Alcohol Addiction as a Reward Deficit/Stress Surfeit Disorder.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2025Review
- Novel medications for problematic alcohol use.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2024Review
- Role of aldosterone and mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) in addiction: A scoping review.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Article
- Spironolactone as a potential new pharmacotherapy for alcohol use disorder: convergent evidence from rodent and human studies.Molecular psychiatry · 2022Article
- Association of topiramate prescribed for any indication with reduced alcohol consumption in electronic health record data.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2022Article
- The Mineralocorticoid Receptor: An Emerging Pharmacotherapeutic Target for Alcohol Use Disorder?ACS chemical neuroscience · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
There is a need to increase the armamentarium of pharmacotherapies for alcohol use disorder (AUD). Recent research suggests that mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) antagonism via spironolactone may represent a novel pharmacological treatment for AUD. We conducted a pharmacoepidemiologic retrospective cohort study (June 1, 2014 to May 31, 2018) to examine whether spironolactone dispensation (≥90 continuous days), for any indication, is associated with changes in weekly alcohol use about 6 months later. We compared 523 spironolactone-treated adults and 2305 untreated adults, matched on high-dimensional propensity scores created from a set of predefined (sociodemographic and health characteristics, diagnoses, and service utilization) and empirical electronic health record-derived covariates. The sample was 57% female and 27% non-White with a mean age of 59.2 years (SD = 19.3). Treated patients reduced their weekly alcohol use by 3.50 drinks (95% CI = -4.22, -2.79), while untreated patients reduced by 2.74 drinks (95% CI = -3.22, -2.26), yielding a significant difference of 0.76 fewer drinks (95% CI = -1.43, -0.11). Among those who drank >7 drinks/week at baseline, treated patients, compared to untreated patients, reported a greater reduction in weekly alcohol use by 4.18 drinks (95% CI = -5.38, -2.97), while there was no significant difference among those who drank less. There was a significant dose-response relationship between spironolactone dosage and change in drinks/week. Pending additional evidence on its safety and efficacy in individuals with AUD, spironolactone (and MR blockade, at large) may hold promise as a pharmacotherapy for AUD.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.