Naltrexone Can Maybe Help You Stop Stealing Sh*t

I could have used this when I was 15 years old and accused of stealing cheese from the supermarket.  Reuters India reporting out of New York states that there is a drug, Naltrexone that can help people who have kleptomania (the systematic urge to steal shit).  Here’s the quote:

Kleptomania shares properties with other obsessive-compulsive behaviors such as substance abuse, repeated “wrong” behaviors with the inability to control them and excesses.  The study that was done that brought this information to the fore was an eight-week clinical trial by Dr. John Grant and colleagues at the University of Minnesota.  In the study 25 participants with a history of kleptomania were given either 116.7 milligrams of naltrexone per day or a placebo.  The people who took the naltrexone had a significant reduction in their urges as well as a reduction in depression and anxiety.  The belief is that opiates govern the brain’s feeling system.

Interesting.  Now if they can find a drug that’ll keep people from killin’ and shooting others, we’ll be in business!

~ by striggity on April 15, 2009.