Campral/Acamprosate (Acetylhomotaurine)

[High_Prob]

Hi everyone,

Has anyone taken Campral before? Apparently, it is a form of taurine that can more readily cross the blood brain barrier.

I was thinking of experimenting with it to reduce alcohol cravings but after reading the below abstract I am thinking high dose taurine may be a safer option ("Both AC-induced neurotoxicity and elevation of [Ca2+](i) can be prevented by taurine suggesting that AC may exert its effect through its antagonistic interaction with taurine receptors"). The experiment used cultured neurons only so not much to form a solid conclusion...


Neurotoxic effect of acamprosate, n-acetyl-homotaurine, in cultured neurons. - PubMed - NCBI
"Acamprosate (AC), N-acetyl-homotaurine, has recently been introduced for treating alcohol craving and reducing relapses in weaned alcoholics. AC may exert its action through the taurine system rather than the glutamatergic or GABAergic system. This conclusion is based on the observations that AC strongly inhibits the binding of taurine to taurine receptors while it has little effect on the binding of glutamate to glutamate receptors or muscimol to GABA(A) receptors. In addition, AC was found to be neurotoxic, at least in neuronal cultures, triggering neuronal damage at 1 mM. The underlying mechanism of AC-induced neuronal injury appears to be due to its action in increasing the intracellular calcium level, [Ca2+](i). Both AC-induced neurotoxicity and elevation of [Ca2+](i) can be prevented by taurine suggesting that AC may exert its effect through its antagonistic interaction with taurine receptors."

Please let me know your thoughts...

 

[High_Prob]

I'll assume that no one here has tried Campral. But does anyone have any thoughts/insight into the study? Any secondhand knowledge about Campral?

 

[High_Prob]

 

[High_Prob]

Okay, all joking aside... @haidut do you have any insight? Kind of desperate over here...

 

[Pointless]

It's a neurotoxic taurine antagonist. It's in the abstract you posted.

 

[High_Prob]

It's a neurotoxic taurine antagonist. It's in the abstract you posted.

Come on...seriously...I'm dying over here (thanks for the laugh by the way)

That is the only study that I could find (out of many) stating that it is neurotoxic but the study was in vitro. Most of the other studies that I read conclude that it is neuroprotective...

 

[High_Prob]

After further research, I came across the below studies that theorize that it may actually be the Calcium in Acamprosate Calcium that is the active moiety of Acamprosate and which is responsible for the beneficial effects on alcoholics. Natedawggh had success with Calcium (and also Lysine, Taurine, Magnesium Carbonate and Niacinamide) for alcohol cravings. I may try this first before experimenting with Acamprosate...

Acamprosate: An Alcoholism Treatment That May Not Be What We Thought

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924977X16319824