Alcohol & Exercise Study (Alc-Excr)

Western University, Canada

Status: Completed

Conditions: Alcohol-Related Disorders

Treatments: Behavioral: Coloring; Behavioral: Exercise

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05955911

0000055296

Details and patient eligibility

About

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if exercise can reduce alcohol craving in heavy social alcohol drinkers. The main questions this project aims to answer are 1) compared to a distraction activity (i.e., coloring), will mild-to-moderate intensity exercise (i.e., walking on a treadmill) reduce alcohol craving; 2) compared to a distraction, will mild-to-moderate intensity exercise reduce the amount of consumption of an alcohol-placebo beverage.

Full description

Upon arriving to the study, participants will complete baseline measures assessing for the inclusion and exclusion criteria, as well as baseline alcohol craving and subjective response measures. Participants will then be randomly assigned into the active treatment (exercise) or distraction (coloring) condition. After randomization, participants will consume a low-dose alcohol beverage (BAC=0.03g/dL; equivalent to approximately 1 standard alcohol beverage) within five minutes to induce active alcohol craving. 15 minutes post-beverage consumption, participants will complete the alcohol craving and subjective response measures. At 20 minutes post-beverage consumption, participants will begin their randomly assigned 20-minute activity (exercise or coloring). At approximately 12 minutes into the activity (32 minutes post beverage consumption) and immediately after the activity (44 minutes post beverage consumption), the participants will complete the alcohol craving and subjective response measures. Participants will then be given a tray of three 8oz. cups of water and 3 8oz. cups of an alcohol-placebo beverage and will be allowed to drink as much or as little of the beverages as they would like.

Enrollment: 68 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 19 to 65 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Heavy social alcohol drinkers (i.e., alcohol drinkers who consume 10-40 standard alcohol beverages per week and participate in 1-5 binge drinking episodes [consume 4+/5+ drinks in a sitting for women/men, respectively]) per week.

Exclusion criteria

• Meets DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for a current moderate or severe alcohol use disorder
• Meets DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for a current Moderate or Severe cannabis use disorder
• Endorses daily smoking of tobacco
• Endorses having a current DSM-5 psychiatric disorder
• Endorses having any medical conditions that may interfere with the exercise condition (e.g., knee-replacement, sprained ankle, etc.)
• Has a current level of physical activity that exceeds 20 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day
• Endorses illicit substance use (i.e., use of illicit substances x>2 times in the past year)
• Has self-reported allergies to pineapple juice, cranberry juice, orange juice, &/or tonic water
• Individuals not proficient in reading, writing, or speaking in English
• Women who are trying to conceive or who are pregnant
• Women who are currently breastfeeding

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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68 participants in 2 patient groups

Exercise

Experimental group

Description:

Moderate intensity treadmill walking (40%-59% of heartrate reserve).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Exercise

Coloring

Other group

Description:

Coloring in an adult coloring book as a distraction activity

Treatment:

Behavioral: Coloring