By There has been a lot of news lately surrounding the use of opioids to treat chronic pain. This is because they come with numerous side effects that are leaving researchers looking for better alternatives. Now, researchers from Tulane University and Southeast Louisiana Veterans Health Care System may have developed the solution to the problem.
Their research, which will be published in the June 2016 issue of the journal Neuropharmacology, shares the results of their study using engineered endomorphin on rats. Endomorphin, a chemical that naturally occurs in the body, was used to engineer a more powerful pain killer. The major benefit to this pain killer is that it brings relief from the pain without all of the side effects that are typical for opioids (1).
The most common treatment for chronic pain is prescription pain killers, but the problem is that they also come with a host of side effects. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people who take prescription painkillers can become addicted with just one prescription, and once they are addicted it’s difficult to stop. Additionally, they report that in 2013, there were two million Americans who abused prescription painkillers, and there were 44 people on average who died each day from an overdose of them (2).
Not only do people easily become addicted to opioids, but they can also build up a tolerance, leading them to need more and more to obtain the same effect. Building up a tolerance to them increases the risks of addiction and abuse of the drugs. Endomorphin, on the other hand, may help to address these problems that have reached epidemic proportions. In the study, endomorphin produced longer pain relief without slowing breathing or impairing motor coordination. It also produced far less tolerance than morphine did in the study. Opioids have another major problem, they bind to and activate the glial cells which surround the pain transmitting neurons. This activation actually increases the firing of the pain neurons. This leads to opioid hyperalgesia, a long-term worsening of pain. Interestingly, endomorphin does not seem to cause this glial activation—this is a very important breakthrough.
For those suffering from chronic pain, this study provides hope. Not only may it bring the pain relief that people are seeking, but it may also do so without all of the harmful and risky side effects of using our existing opioid medications. With clinical trials on humans beginning within the next two years, time will tell if endomorphin will be the next blockbuster pain reliever.
Sources:
- Tulane University. Study: New drug could be safer, non-additive alternative to morphine. <http://tulane.edu/news/releases/new-drug-could-be-safer-non-addictive-alternative-to-morphine.cfm>
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When the prescription becomes the problem. <http://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/epidemic/index.html>
