NCT05955911

Alcohol & Exercise Study

The Effect of an Acute Exercise Intervention on Alcohol Craving and Alcohol Seeking Behaviors Among Heavy Social Drinkers

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 68 (actual)
• Sponsor: Western University, Canada · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 19 Years – 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

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.

Detailed 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.

Conditions

• Alcohol-Related Disorders

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Exercise	20 minutes of Moderate intensity (40%-59% heartrate reserve) walking on a treadmill.
BEHAVIORAL	Coloring	20 minutes of coloring in adult coloring book

Timeline

• Start date: 2023-12-01
• Primary completion: 2025-07-14
• Completion: 2025-07-14
• First posted: 2023-07-21
• Last updated: 2025-07-20

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Canada