KanaVape's cannabinoid e-cigarette launch will not include Canada, for now

The makers of a product described as a hemp vaporizer say it won't get you high, but it will help you relax.

KanaVape says its product, which looks like an e-cigarette, does not contain THC — the active ingredient that creates a high in marijuana users. The French-Czech company says the vaporizer offers a non-toxic, natural flavour extracted from hemp plants grown in France, Spain and the Czech Republic.

It is similar to aromatherapy, in that it encourages relaxation, says company co-founder Antonin Cohen.

He added that research has shown "there is almost no addiction with it."

Getting the product to the market hasn't been easy, Cohen told CBC News.

Online pre-orders in France and the U.K. — using French providers — were delayed earlier this month when, according to Cohen, the payment system was deactivated because French Health Minister Marisol Touraine didn't like the product.

But plans to launch KanaVape in January, in countries where hemp and electronic cigarettes are legal, remain in effect. The exact launch date, however, is uncertain.

That launch – at least for now – will not include Canada.

Currently in Canada, there are no e-cigarettes with nicotine that are legally approved for sale. Electronic cigarettes that do not contain nicotine are legal and readily available in many places, even to minors, as long as they make no health claim.

Entrepreneurs challenge regulations

According to Cohen, KanaVape does not contain nicotine and does not claim to be a medicinal product, given that the levels of THC and cannabidiol (CBD) are low or non-existent.

CBD is currently listed as a Schedule II drug in Canada's Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. That means there is a prohibition on the possession, distribution, import, export and production of CBD in Canada, although exemptions can be sought.

Cohen says if his company sees a lot of demand from Canada, it will work closely with regulators to see if it's possible to evolve with the law.

"So, obviously our product also is made to boost, I would say, this evolution in terms of the regulation," he says.

"Cannabidiol is a non-psychotic cannabinoid, it will not make you 'high' but will help you relax," KanaVape's website claims.

The product is likely to spark new questions about what is already a controversial industry.

There has been debate over the pros and cons of e-cigarettes: whether the devices help people quit smoking or stop people from taking up traditional smoking, and how advertisements for e-cigarettes influence young people.

This isn't the first attempt to combine cannabis and e-cigarettes. HempVAP, made by California-based Kannaway, is "the first hemp-based cannabidiol vaporizer product on the market," according to its website. The company, which launched in April 2014, also sells other products like a CBD oil-containing skin care line and ships to the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

Entrepreneurs are more likely than large companies to challenge government regulations, according to University of Ottawa law professor David Sweanor.

"You get new products, innovative technology coming from entrepreneurs who are seeing a market demand and they're willing to be very entrepreneurial and creative about how they get something into a marketplace," Sweanor says.

Concerns about transhipment

Cohen maintains that KanaVape, which can be purchased online, won't be delivered to countries where CBD is not legal. But there are concerns about transhipment, where a product is transported to an intermediary location before it reaches its final destination. There are also concerns about the e-devices being used for vaping real marijuana.

Regulations can no longer halt the innovation that is easily facilitated by the internet, Sweanor says. Consumers can inform themselves and make decisions on products, and entrepreneurs can thwart the cost of mass advertising because consumers will do it for them.

"The market's big enough, somebody's going to come out with something that meets a consumer demand while being able to not get wiped out by some sort of government regulation," he says.

"And it's going to be just the whole Silicon Valley thing of high risk, high reward, which these companies can do."

But Cohen maintains KanaVape is designed for users to "enjoy and benefit from CBD and without nicotine," as well as increase visibility and education surrounding cannabinoids.

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Bad luck plays the biggest role in getting most cancers, researchers suggest

Plain old bad luck plays a major role in determining who gets cancer and who does not, according to researchers who found that two-thirds of cancer incidence of various types can be blamed on random mutations and not heredity or risky habits like smoking.

The researchers said on Thursday random DNA mutations accumulating in various parts of the body during ordinary cell division are the prime culprits behind many cancer types.

They looked at 31 cancer types and found that 22 of them, including leukemia and pancreatic, bone, testicular, ovarian and brain cancer, could be explained largely by these random mutations — essentially biological bad luck.

The other nine types, including colorectal cancer, skin cancer known as basal cell carcinoma and smoking-related lung cancer, were more heavily influenced by heredity and environmental factors like risky behaviour or exposure to carcinogens.

Overall, they attributed 65 percent of cancer incidence to random mutations in genes that can drive cancer growth.

"When someone gets cancer, immediately people want to know why," said oncologist Dr. Bert Vogelstein of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, who conducted the study published in the journal Science with Johns Hopkins biomathematician Cristian Tomasetti.

Only nine of 31 forms of cancer studied were more heavily influenced by heredity and environmental factors such as smoking, for example. (File Photo)

"They like to believe there's a reason. And the real reason in many cases is not because you didn't behave well or were exposed to some bad environmental influence, it's just because that person was unlucky. It's losing the lottery."

Tomasetti said harmful mutations occur for "no particular reason other than randomness" as the body's master cells, called stem cells, divide in various tissues.

Tomasetti said the study indicates that changing one's lifestyle and habits like smoking to avoid cancer risks may help prevent certain cancers, but may not be as effective for others.

"Thus, we should focus more research and resources on finding ways to detect such cancers at early, curable stages," Tomasetti added.

The researchers charted the cumulative number of lifetime divisions in the stem cells of a given tissue - for example, lungs or colon - and compared that to the lifetime cancer risk in that tissue.

Generally speaking, tissues that undergo more divisions - thus increasing the probability of random mutations - were more prone to tumors.

The study did not cover all cancer types. Breast and prostate cancer were excluded because the researchers were unable to ascertain reliable stem cell division rates.

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More than 8,000 people died of Ebola last year, WHO says

7,989 people died in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea from the Ebola outbreak in 2014

The Associated Press Posted: Jan 02, 2015 2:04 PM ET Last Updated: Jan 03, 2015 6:35 PM ET

Ebola fight: Canada's command centre against disease 2:07

Ebola fight: Canada's command centre against disease 2:07

Orphans of the Ebola outbreak 3:02

Orphans of the Ebola outbreak 3:02

The World Health Organization says more than 8,000 people are thought to have died last year from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

The Geneva-based body says the total number of confirmed, probable and suspected deaths from the disease in the three most affected countries reached 7,989 by Dec. 31.

The United Nations agency said Friday that 2,827 deaths had been reported from Sierra Leone, some 3,423 from Liberia and 1,739 from Guinea. It said those countries had a total of 20,381 cases to date.

The current outbreak, which began about a year ago, has also claimed some 15 lives elsewhere.

The Ebola virus causes a form of hemorrhagic fever with a high mortality rate. It can be transmitted through bodily fluids such as blood.

Comments on this story are moderated according to our Submission Guidelines. Comments are welcome while open. We reserve the right to close comments at any time.

Submission Policy

Note: The CBC does not necessarily endorse any of the views posted. By submitting your comments, you acknowledge that CBC has the right to reproduce, broadcast and publicize those comments or any part thereof in any manner whatsoever. Please note that comments are moderated and published according to our submission guidelines.

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How sweet it is — or isn't: Finding chocolate's fountain of health

Chocolate headlines are as irresistible as the treat itself, as science transforms chocolate from mere candy into superfood. (Koichi Kamoshida/Getty )

News headlines proclaiming the health effects of chocolate are as irresistible as chocolate itself.  

When the New York Times ran this headline last fall, "To improve a memory, consider chocolate," it quickly became one of the newspaper's "most emailed" stories.  Other news outlets rushed to match the story.

My assignment desk perked up and sent me the clipping with the question "interesting?" And it was interesting, but not for the reasons most news editors hope.

It was interesting because the study was not about chocolate at all. That's because chocolate contains almost none of the compound that the researchers are studying.

It's an irony that lies at the heart of a major international scientific effort to find something healthy in the cocoa bean, an effort largely sponsored by the chocolate industry.

Healthy flavanols largely disappear once the cocoa bean is heated. (Stephen Chernin/Getty)

In this case, the study authors were adamant that no one should start eating more chocolate based on their findings.

"Unfortunately this is not news that you can use," said lead researcher Dr. Scott Small, director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at Columbia University in New York. "As a physician, I'm a little worried about the headlines that say 'eat chocolate.'"

But those headlines are as irresistible as the chocolate itself, as science transforms chocolate from mere candy into superfood.  

 Scientists have zeroed in on a family of fragile molecules known as cocoa flavanols. Research suggests they can relax blood vessels, improve blood flow and, as Small found in his study, even increase activity in a part of the brain involved with age related memory loss.

But those flavanols largely disappear once the cocoa bean is heated, fermented and processed into chocolate. In other words, making chocolate destroys the very ingredient that is supposed to make it healthy.

That's why Small's memory study used a highly concentrated powder prepared exclusively for research by Mars Inc., the chocolate company, which also partially funded the study.

"It is not a commercially available product," said Catherine Kwik-Uribe, the scientific director at Mars Inc. "It's actually very difficult for an average consumer today to get the flavanol levels that we see are needed in order to produce some of the effects."

This is true even for dark chocolate. A high percentage of cocoa does not necessarily mean high levels of flavanols. And there are no international standards for flavanol content.

The other problem is the taste.

Flavanols are bitter, and researchers have done studies to test the levels of flavanols that research subjects can choke down. The "rejection threshold" for the high flavanol chocolate was more than 80 per cent — a finding that does not bode well for the dream of healthy chocolate.

'As a physician, I'm a little worried about the headlines that say 'eat chocolate.''- Dr. Scott Small

 "Chocolate is a wonderful food, but it is not going to be an appropriate form for a product that you want to have people consume every single day," said Kwik-Uribe.

It means if health-enhancing cocoa flavanols do end up on the shelf, they will likely appear in some other form, such a powder, pill or food supplement.

And the chocolate companies are getting ready, by patenting not just the processes, but also the health claims.

Mars Inc. has staked a claim to the use of cocoa flavanols for a wide variety of ailments, ranging from gum disease to cancer.

But there are lots of foods that contain potentially healthy flavanols, along with other bioactive compounds in complex combinations.  So the question is: Would academic scientists in publicly funded institutions be so interested in the cocoa bean if the chocolate industry wasn't supporting so much of the research?

"We have to recognize the impact of industry involvement," said University of Alberta law Prof. Tim Caulfield, who studies the effect of industry funding on scientific research.

"There's lots of evidence that demonstrates that industry involvement can skew the direction of research, it can skew the research questions that are asked, and researchers follow the money," he said.

One effect of industry funding is the focus on a single nutrient. It's an approach that Christy Tangney at the Rush University Medical Centre in Chicago has argued against. She has researched polyphenols, the broad class of plant-based compounds that includes cocoa flavanols.

"The problem is we still typically approach this research with a reductionist view, isolating the compound so we can manipulate it," she said.

"How do we know that it isn't a combination of different components of different foods eaten at the same time?" 

Tangney said by zeroing in on single compounds, scientist might be missing the whole effect.

Still, the scientific march is on to find the fountain of health inside the cocoa bean.

Mars Inc. is about to join forces with Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and the U.S. National Institutes of Health in a public-private partnership to discover whether cocoa flavanols reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke and death. In a randomized controlled clinical trial, 18,000 men and women will take a high-flavanol cocoa capsule, supplied by Mars Inc., for five years.

"It's the first dietary intervention trial of this size with cocoa flavanols," said Kwik-Uribe. "So it really presents a very exciting opportunity both for Mars and for the public."

For more, watch Kelly Crowe tonight on The National and listen to CBC Radio's World at Six.

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More than 8,000 people died of Ebola last year, WHO says

7,989 people died in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea from the Ebola outbreak in 2014

The Associated Press Posted: Jan 02, 2015 2:04 PM ET Last Updated: Jan 03, 2015 6:35 PM ET

Ebola fight: Canada's command centre against disease 2:07

Ebola fight: Canada's command centre against disease 2:07

Orphans of the Ebola outbreak 3:02

Orphans of the Ebola outbreak 3:02

The World Health Organization says more than 8,000 people are thought to have died last year from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

The Geneva-based body says the total number of confirmed, probable and suspected deaths from the disease in the three most affected countries reached 7,989 by Dec. 31.

The United Nations agency said Friday that 2,827 deaths had been reported from Sierra Leone, some 3,423 from Liberia and 1,739 from Guinea. It said those countries had a total of 20,381 cases to date.

The current outbreak, which began about a year ago, has also claimed some 15 lives elsewhere.

The Ebola virus causes a form of hemorrhagic fever with a high mortality rate. It can be transmitted through bodily fluids such as blood.

Comments on this story are moderated according to our Submission Guidelines. Comments are welcome while open. We reserve the right to close comments at any time.

Submission Policy

Note: The CBC does not necessarily endorse any of the views posted. By submitting your comments, you acknowledge that CBC has the right to reproduce, broadcast and publicize those comments or any part thereof in any manner whatsoever. Please note that comments are moderated and published according to our submission guidelines.

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B.C. nurse released from hospital after testing negative for Ebola

A B.C. nurse practitioner who was being tested for Ebola will be reunited with her family on Friday after health care workers confirmed she does not have the virus.

'It was frightening because all of a sudden I was under the microscope and there were so many people looking. I just felt like I was still just me but I had a cold'-Patrice Gordon

Patrice Gordon of Rossland, B.C., travelled to Sierra Leone in November to provide medical care to people suffering from Ebola and returned to Canada on Christmas Day. She checked into hospital in Kelowna, B.C. on Monday after she felt cold symptoms.

"I knew there was a very, very outside chance, but it never felt that way to me. I didn't feel sick like I had seen people sick there. I knew how absolutely meticulous I had always been, we had always been," she said.She tested negative for Ebola on Tuesday, but remained in hospital for further testing until her release on Thursday. Gordon told reporters in a conference call that she never truly feared she had the disease.

Gordon has a cold, and coughed throughout the call with reporters. She said the entire experience has been exhausting and stressful, knowing that her family has been worried and the public is worried about there being a "patient zero" in Canada.

She admitted thinking at one point: "Oh my god, I really don't want to be patient zero."

Gordon has returned to a Kelowna hotel, where she has been staying since Christmas during the three week monitoring period that is standard for Red Cross workers returning from West Africa. She said her sons will come from Rossland to visit her on Friday.

She praised Kelowna General Hospital staff. Gordon was brought in through a back door, never went near any patient care areas and mostly spoke with doctors and nurses through glass, she said.

When Gordon first arrived at hospital, she felt intimidated by the amount of attention she received.

"It was frightening because all of a sudden I was under the microscope and there were so many people looking. I just felt like I was still just me but I had a cold," she said.

Gordon was quarantined at Kelowna General Hospital. (Submitted by Interior Health)

As someone with experience treating Ebola patients, Gordon found herself giving tips to the health care workers who handled her case. She said no one did anything dangerous, but she mostly offered advice on efficiency.

"It was more like, 'How about this idea?' Having been in an environment where you're doing something hundreds of times, and seeing someone do it for the first time, those kinds of suggestions," she said.

"Hopefully they never (have to do this) again. But if they did, hopefully they could be more efficient."

Gordon is one of 24 Canadian Red Cross workers who have travelled to West Africa to help with the Ebola crisis. Six of them remain, along with more than 10,000 local volunteers in countries affected by the disease.

She said she trained in a mock-up Ebola treatment centre in Madrid, Spain before arriving in Kenema, Sierra Leone. She wore full protective gear while treating patients, some of them children and babies.

"I've never done anything more rewarding in my life, you know, nothing," she said. "To reflect back on the day and to think that sense that you've made a difference — really, truly, made a difference."

Gordon stressed that people who have returned from West Africa are not dangerous unless they are showing symptoms. As soon as she felt a sore throat and a higher temperature, she knew she had to go to hospital as a precaution.

She said she is grateful for the support she has received but hopes the attention her case has attracted will die down, allowing the focus to return to the Ebola crisis. Despite what she's been through, she still hopes to go back to West Africa someday.

"The interest in me and my Ebola test, it's kind of embarrassing for me. It feels like I'm personally taking away from where the emphasis should be," she said.

"That's probably the most anxiety-provoking part of all this, is that I'm feeling a bit guilty for taking the spotlight away from where it belongs."

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Bad luck plays the biggest role in getting most cancers, researchers suggest

Plain old bad luck plays a major role in determining who gets cancer and who does not, according to researchers who found that two-thirds of cancer incidence of various types can be blamed on random mutations and not heredity or risky habits like smoking.

The researchers said on Thursday random DNA mutations accumulating in various parts of the body during ordinary cell division are the prime culprits behind many cancer types.

They looked at 31 cancer types and found that 22 of them, including leukemia and pancreatic, bone, testicular, ovarian and brain cancer, could be explained largely by these random mutations — essentially biological bad luck.

The other nine types, including colorectal cancer, skin cancer known as basal cell carcinoma and smoking-related lung cancer, were more heavily influenced by heredity and environmental factors like risky behaviour or exposure to carcinogens.

Overall, they attributed 65 percent of cancer incidence to random mutations in genes that can drive cancer growth.

"When someone gets cancer, immediately people want to know why," said oncologist Dr. Bert Vogelstein of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, who conducted the study published in the journal Science with Johns Hopkins biomathematician Cristian Tomasetti.

Only nine of 31 forms of cancer studied were more heavily influenced by heredity and environmental factors such as smoking, for example. (File Photo)

"They like to believe there's a reason. And the real reason in many cases is not because you didn't behave well or were exposed to some bad environmental influence, it's just because that person was unlucky. It's losing the lottery."

Tomasetti said harmful mutations occur for "no particular reason other than randomness" as the body's master cells, called stem cells, divide in various tissues.

Tomasetti said the study indicates that changing one's lifestyle and habits like smoking to avoid cancer risks may help prevent certain cancers, but may not be as effective for others.

"Thus, we should focus more research and resources on finding ways to detect such cancers at early, curable stages," Tomasetti added.

The researchers charted the cumulative number of lifetime divisions in the stem cells of a given tissue - for example, lungs or colon - and compared that to the lifetime cancer risk in that tissue.

Generally speaking, tissues that undergo more divisions - thus increasing the probability of random mutations - were more prone to tumors.

The study did not cover all cancer types. Breast and prostate cancer were excluded because the researchers were unable to ascertain reliable stem cell division rates.

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KanaVape's cannabinoid e-cigarette launch will not include Canada, for now

The makers of a product described as a hemp vaporizer say it won't get you high, but it will help you relax.

KanaVape says its product, which looks like an e-cigarette, does not contain THC — the active ingredient that creates a high in marijuana users. The French-Czech company says the vaporizer offers a non-toxic, natural flavour extracted from hemp plants grown in France, Spain and the Czech Republic.

It is similar to aromatherapy, in that it encourages relaxation, says company co-founder Antonin Cohen.

He added that research has shown "there is almost no addiction with it."

Getting the product to the market hasn't been easy, Cohen told CBC News.

Online pre-orders in France and the U.K. — using French providers — were delayed earlier this month when, according to Cohen, the payment system was deactivated because French Health Minister Marisol Touraine didn't like the product.

But plans to launch KanaVape in January, in countries where hemp and electronic cigarettes are legal, remain in effect. The exact launch date, however, is uncertain.

That launch – at least for now – will not include Canada.

Currently in Canada, there are no e-cigarettes with nicotine that are legally approved for sale. Electronic cigarettes that do not contain nicotine are legal and readily available in many places, even to minors, as long as they make no health claim.

Entrepreneurs challenge regulations

According to Cohen, KanaVape does not contain nicotine and does not claim to be a medicinal product, given that the levels of THC and cannabidiol (CBD) are low or non-existent.

CBD is currently listed as a Schedule II drug in Canada's Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. That means there is a prohibition on the possession, distribution, import, export and production of CBD in Canada, although exemptions can be sought.

Cohen says if his company sees a lot of demand from Canada, it will work closely with regulators to see if it's possible to evolve with the law.

"So, obviously our product also is made to boost, I would say, this evolution in terms of the regulation," he says.

"Cannabidiol is a non-psychotic cannabinoid, it will not make you 'high' but will help you relax," KanaVape's website claims.

The product is likely to spark new questions about what is already a controversial industry.

There has been debate over the pros and cons of e-cigarettes: whether the devices help people quit smoking or stop people from taking up traditional smoking, and how advertisements for e-cigarettes influence young people.

This isn't the first attempt to combine cannabis and e-cigarettes. HempVAP, made by California-based Kannaway, is "the first hemp-based cannabidiol vaporizer product on the market," according to its website. The company, which launched in April 2014, also sells other products like a CBD oil-containing skin care line and ships to the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

Entrepreneurs are more likely than large companies to challenge government regulations, according to University of Ottawa law professor David Sweanor.

"You get new products, innovative technology coming from entrepreneurs who are seeing a market demand and they're willing to be very entrepreneurial and creative about how they get something into a marketplace," Sweanor says.

Concerns about transhipment

Cohen maintains that KanaVape, which can be purchased online, won't be delivered to countries where CBD is not legal. But there are concerns about transhipment, where a product is transported to an intermediary location before it reaches its final destination. There are also concerns about the e-devices being used for vaping real marijuana.

Regulations can no longer halt the innovation that is easily facilitated by the internet, Sweanor says. Consumers can inform themselves and make decisions on products, and entrepreneurs can thwart the cost of mass advertising because consumers will do it for them.

"The market's big enough, somebody's going to come out with something that meets a consumer demand while being able to not get wiped out by some sort of government regulation," he says.

"And it's going to be just the whole Silicon Valley thing of high risk, high reward, which these companies can do."

But Cohen maintains KanaVape is designed for users to "enjoy and benefit from CBD and without nicotine," as well as increase visibility and education surrounding cannabinoids.

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Want a drink? U.S. researchers are trying to figure out why some people abuse alcohol

The tequila sure looks real, so do the beer taps. Inside the hospital at the National Institutes of Health, researchers are testing a possible new treatment to help heavy drinkers cut back — using a replica of a fully stocked bar.

The idea: Sitting in the dimly lit bar-laboratory should cue the volunteers' brains to crave a drink, and help determine if the experimental pill counters that urge.

True, there's no skunky bar odour; these bottles are filled with coloured water. The real alcohol is locked in the hospital pharmacy, ready to send over for the extra temptation of smell — and to test how safe the drug is if people drink anyway.

"The goal is to create almost a real-world environment, but to control it very strictly," said lead researcher Dr. Lorenzo Leggio, who is testing how a hormone named ghrelin that sparks people's appetite for food also affects their desire for alcohol, and if blocking it helps.

Amid all the yearly resolutions to quit, alcohol use disorders affect about 17 million Americans, and only a small fraction receives treatment. There's no one-size-fits-all therapy, and the NIH is spurring a hunt for new medications that target the brain's addiction cycle in different ways — and to find out which options work best in which drinkers.

"Alcoholics come in many forms," explained Dr. George Koob, director of NIH's National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, which has published new online guides, at www.niaaa.nih.gov, explaining who's at risk and what can help.

What's the limit? NIAAA says "low-risk" drinking means no more than four drinks in any single day and no more than 14 in a week for men, and no more than three drinks a day and seven a week for women.

Genes play a role in who's vulnerable to crossing the line into alcohol abuse. So do environmental factors, such as getting used to drinking a certain amount, not to mention how your own brain's circuitry adapts.

Treatment can range from inpatient rehab and 12-step programs to behavioural therapy and the few medications available today. Koob, who specializes in the neurobiology of alcohol, says it usually takes a combination and ultimately, "you have to change your life."

Yet a recent review for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality estimated that less than a third of people who need treatment get it, and of those, less than 10 per cent receive medications.

Three drugs are approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat alcohol abuse. One, naltrexone, blocks alcohol's feel-good sensation by targeting receptors in the brain's reward system — if people harbour a particular gene. The anti-craving pill acamprosate appears to calm stress-related brain chemicals in certain people. The older Antabuse works differently, triggering nausea and other aversive symptoms if people drink while taking it.

Recent research suggests a handful of drugs used for other disorders also show promise:

• Scientists at the Scripps Research Institute found the epilepsy drug gabapentin reduced relapses in drinkers who'd recently quit, and improved cravings, mood and sleep by targeting an emotion-related brain chemical.
• A study by NIAAA and five medical centres found the anti-smoking drug Chantix may help alcohol addiction, too, by reducing heavy drinkers' cravings.
• And University of Pennsylvania researchers found the epilepsy drug topiramate helped heavy drinkers cut back, if they have a particular gene variation mostly found in people of European descent.

Back in NIH's bar lab, one of about a dozen versions around the country, the focus is on ghrelin, the hormone produced in the stomach that controls appetite via receptors in the brain. It turns out there's overlap between receptors that fuel overeating and alcohol craving in the brain's reward system, explained NIAAA's Leggio.

In a study published this fall, his team gave 45 heavy-drinking volunteers different doses of ghrelin, and their urge to drink rose along with the extra hormone.

Now Leggio is testing whether blocking ghrelin's action also blocks those cravings, using an experimental Pfizer drug originally developed for diabetes but never sold. The main goal of this first-step study is to ensure mixing alcohol with the drug is safe. But researchers also measure cravings as volunteers, hooked to a blood pressure monitor in the tiny bar-lab, smell a favourite drink. Initial safety results are expected this spring.

"Our hope is that down the line, we might be able to do a simple blood test that tells if you will be a naltrexone person, an acamprosate person, a ghrelin person," Koob said.

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Ebola outbreak's 1st victim may have been infected while playing with bats

Scientists have come up with the likely possibility of how Ebola's first victim — Patient Zero — contracted the deadly disease that has ravaged parts of West Africa.

Patient Zero, who has since been identified as two-year-old Guinean Emile Ouamouno, may have been infected while hunting or playing with bats inside a hollow tree near his home in a small village named Meliandou, according to researchers. He died in December 2013.

Research published in the EMBO Molecular Medicine journal finds that the single transmission, from bat to boy, was then spread human to human.

Since the epidemic began, scientists have not been able to determine the cause, though many believe fruits bats were a "natural reservoir" of the virus, according to the World Health Organization. 

The village of Meliandou in southeastern Guinea, where the current Ebola outbreak first began. (EMBO Molecular Medicine)

The EMBO study has expanded the range of possible Ebola sources to include insectivorous bats — the species that were in and around the hollow tree where Ouamouno played. Insectivorous bats have previously been discussed as potential Ebola sources, and the study says "experimental data have shown that this species can survive experimental infection​."

Researchers are also leaning more toward insectivorous bats because they found no large colony of fruit bats near Meliandou.

The scientists arrived at this assumption during a four-week field mission in southeastern Guinea in April, just after the virus broke out. They examined human exposure to bats and other bushmeat, surveyed local wildlife in the forests surrounding the area, and captured and sampled bats in the Meliandou area as well as in neighbouring forests. 

Over eight days, scientists carefully observed the boy's village and spoke with villagers to determine how the boy contracted Ebola. Meliandou is a small village of 31 houses, surrounded by farmland and few larger trees.

Villagers said children used to play frequently in a hollow tree about 50 metres from the boy's home, which housed a colony of insectivorous bats. In the report, villagers said the tree burned down on March 24, and when it caught fire, a "rain of bats" started. A large number of them were collected to eat. 

The stump of the hollow tree where two-year-old Emile Ouamouno was likely infected with the Ebola virus while hunting or playing with bats. (EMBO Molecular Medicine)

The researchers didn't find evidence of Ebola transmission from the consumption of the bats, but villagers said they disposed of them after a ban on bushmeat was announced the following day. 

The study determined Ouamouno's interaction with bats is the likely cause of transmission by ruling out other possibilities, namely that the virus was spread by the consumption of bushmeat.

"Would contaminated fresh bushmeat have been brought to the village by a hunter, the [hunter] would likely be among the first cases, as observed in several outbreaks in the Congo Basin," reads the study.

"However, only children and women presented symptoms or died in the beginning of the current epidemic, and the sole survivor of the index case's family is the father, who had not lived in household for several years and was reported never to have been a hunter."

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