Pain Control News

August 5, 2025

Top Headlines

Lupus Often Fades With Age. Scientists Finally Know Why

Aug. 4, 2025 — Lupus, a relentless autoimmune disease, appears to mellow with age. While it aggressively targets organs with runaway interferon signaling in younger adults, researchers at UCSF have found that the aging process itself may naturally tone down these ...

Reversing Alzheimer's Damage: Two Cancer Drugs Demonstrate Surprising Power

July 31, 2025 — In an exciting breakthrough, researchers have identified cancer drugs that might reverse the effects of Alzheimer's disease in the brain. By analyzing gene expression in brain cells, they discovered that some FDA-approved cancer medications could ...

Fat Melts Away, but So Does Muscle: What Ozempic Users Need to Know

July 31, 2025 — GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic are transforming weight loss, but a new UVA study warns they're not improving a critical measure of health: cardiorespiratory fitness. While these medications help people shed fat, they also strip away vital muscle mass ...

The Pandemic’s Secret Aftershock: Inside the Gut-Brain Breakdown

July 30, 2025 — A new global study reveals a striking post-pandemic surge in gut-brain disorders like IBS and functional dyspepsia. Researchers compared data from 2017 and 2023 and discovered sharp increases IBS up 28% and dyspepsia nearly 44%. Those suffering from ...

One Shot, Seven Days: Long-Acting Levodopa Gel Tackles Parkinson’s Tremors

July 14, 2025 — Researchers in Australia have created a biodegradable gel that delivers Parkinson’s medications through a single weekly shot, replacing the need for multiple daily pills. Injected just under the ...

How a Hidden Brain Circuit Fuels Fibromyalgia, Migraines, and PTSD

July 10, 2025 — What if your brain is the reason some pain feels unbearable? Scientists at the Salk Institute have discovered a hidden brain circuit that gives pain its emotional punch—essentially transforming ordinary discomfort into lasting misery. This ...

A Cholesterol Secret Inside Ticks May Halt Lyme Disease Spread

July 4, 2025 — Scientists have discovered that the bacteria behind Lyme disease and anaplasmosis have a sneaky way of surviving inside ticks—they hijack the tick’s own cell functions to steal cholesterol they need to grow. By tapping into a built-in protein ...

Is Cheese Secretly Fueling Your Nightmares? Science Weighs in

July 1, 2025 — Over a thousand students revealed a striking link between lactose intolerance and nightmare-filled nights, hinting that midnight stomach turmoil from dairy can invade dreams. Researchers suggest simple diet tweaks especially ditching late-night ...

USC's New AI Implant Promises Drug-Free Relief for Chronic Pain

June 24, 2025 — A groundbreaking wireless implant promises real-time, personalized pain relief using AI and ultrasound power no batteries, no wires, and no opioids. Designed by USC and UCLA engineers, it reads brain signals, adapts on the fly, and bends naturally ...

New Discovery: Tylenol Stops Pain at the Nerves, Before It Hits the Brain

June 10, 2025 — Acetaminophen may be doing more than just dulling pain in your brain it could be stopping it before it even starts. Scientists at Hebrew University have discovered that a metabolite of the drug, AM404, blocks pain signals right at their source by ...

Being in Nature Can Help People With Chronic Back Pain Manage Their Condition

June 3, 2025 — Researchers asked patients, some of whom had experienced lower back pain for up to 40 years, if being in nature helped them coped better with their lower back pain. They found that people able to ...

Preventing Chronic Inflammation from Turning Into Cancer

June 2, 2025 — Chronic inflammatory bowel disease is challenging to treat and carries a risk of complications, including the development of bowel cancer. Young people are particularly affected: when genetic predisposition and certain factors coincide, diseases ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:56am EDT

Potential to Prevent and Treat a Common Type of Inflammatory Arthritis Advanced by the Identification of New Genetic Links

May 30, 2025 — Researchers have discovered two genes, RNF144B and ENPP1, that cause calcium pyrophosphate deposition (CPPD) disease in Americans of European and ...

Antidepressant Withdrawal Symptoms More Common Among Long-Term Users

May 26, 2025 — People who have been taking antidepressants for more than two years are substantially more likely to experience withdrawal symptoms compared to short-term users when they come off the medication, ...

The Dietary Bug in a Cancer Therapy

May 22, 2025 — A study has uncovered a surprising link between diet, intestinal microbes and the efficacy of cancer ...

Common Antidepressants Could Help the Immune System Fight Cancer

May 22, 2025 — SSRIs boosted the ability of T cells to kill cancer cells and suppressed tumor growth in both mouse and human tumor ...

Depression Linked to Physical Pain Years Later

May 21, 2025 — Middle-aged and older adults who experience pain are more likely to have had worsening symptoms of depression up to eight years before the pain began, according to a new ...

How Serious Is Your Brain Injury? New Criteria Will Reveal More

May 20, 2025 — Trauma centers nationwide will begin to test a new approach for assessing traumatic brain injury (TBI) that is expected to lead to more accurate diagnoses and more appropriate treatment and follow-up ...

Protein Switch Turns Anti-Viral Immune Response on and Off

May 16, 2025 — An international research team has discovered a critical protein that acts as a 'switch' regulating immune responses to ...

People With Critical Cardiovascular Disease May Benefit from Palliative Care

May 16, 2025 — Palliative care is specialized medical care focused on easing symptoms, addressing psychological and spiritual needs, and helping patients and ...

New Study Raises Concerns About the Safety of Long-Term ADHD Medication Treatment in Children

May 15, 2025 — A recent study reveals that the average duration of ADHD medication for children and adolescents is more than three years. However, reliable, ...

People With Lupus Who Have Certain Antibodies Are More Likely to Experience Blood Clots, Researchers Find

May 15, 2025 — Some patients with lupus who possess specific antibodies are at a higher risk of thrombotic events such as a blood clot, stroke or heart attack, a ...

Drug to Slow Alzheimer's Well Tolerated Outside of Clinical Trial Setting

May 12, 2025 — In a recent study, researchers found adverse events were rare and manageable among clinic patients with very mild or mild Alzheimer's disease who received lecanemab ...

Smart Lactation Pads Can Monitor Safety of Breast Milk in Real Time

May 7, 2025 — Scientists have developed a lactation pad equipped with sensing technology that allows parents of newborns to monitor breast milk in real time. The device is capable of ensuring that breast milk ...

A Digestive 'Treasure Chest' Shows Promise for Targeted Drug Treatment in the Gut

May 1, 2025 — A new approach to drug design can deliver medicine directly to the gut in mice at significantly lower doses than current inflammatory bowel disease treatments. The proof-of-concept study introduced a ...

Once Bitten, Animals Develop Resistance That Shrinks Tick Population

Apr. 30, 2025 — Just in time for tick season, new research is shining a light on how animals develop resistance to tick bites, which points toward the possibility of developing more effective vaccines against the ...

Nearly One-Quarter of E-Scooter Injuries Involved Substance Impaired Riders

Apr. 29, 2025 — About 25% of 7350 patients hospitalized for scooter-related injuries between 2016 and 2021 were using substances such as alcohol, opioids, marijuana and cocaine when injured. The findings underscore ...

The Antibiotic That Takes the Bite out of Lyme

Apr. 23, 2025 — Piperacillin, an antibiotic in the same class as penicillin, effectively cured mice of Lyme disease at 100-times less than the effective dose of doxycycline, the current gold standard treatment. At ...

Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome May Be Driven by Remnants of Infection

Apr. 23, 2025 — Scientists believe they know what causes the treated infection to mimic chronic illness: the body may be responding to remnants of the bacteria that causes Lyme that tend to pool in the liver and ...

Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment Provide Long-Term Relief for Radiation-Induced Injuries

Apr. 23, 2025 — Hyperbaric oxygen treatment provides long-term relief for patients suffering from late radiation-induced injuries after treatment of cancer in the lower abdominal area. Five years after hyperbaric ...

A Repurposed Anti-Inflammatory Drug May Help Treat Alcohol Use Disorder and Related Pain

Apr. 22, 2025 — A preclinical study finds that a drug already FDA-approved for treating inflammatory conditions may help reduce both alcohol intake and pain sensitivity -- two issues that commonly co-occur with ...

Drugs Targeting 'Zombie Cells' Show Promise for Treating Chronic Back Pain

Apr. 22, 2025 — In a preclinical study, two drugs targeting 'zombie cells' have been shown to treat the underlying cause of chronic low back pain. The condition affects millions of people worldwide. ...

Insomnia and Sleep Medication Use Connected to Disability in Older Adults

Apr. 18, 2025 — For adults over the age of 65, higher levels of both insomnia symptoms and sleep medication use were associated with higher risk of disability a year later, according to a new ...

Sharp Uptake in Use of New Weight Loss and Glucose-Lowering Medications

Apr. 14, 2025 — Researchers found that by December 2023, more than 1 in 3 of the medications being started for type 2 diabetes treatment were GLP-1RA-based ...

Study Provides Scaffold to Selectively Target Drug Breakdown Process

Apr. 10, 2025 — Scientists explored selectively blocking the CYP3A4 protein responsible for breaking down large swaths of approved drugs, providing a way to improve drug ...

By Re-Creating Neural Pathway in Dish, Stanford Medicine Research May Speed Pain Treatment

Apr. 9, 2025 — Scientists have rebuilt, in laboratory glassware, the neural pathway that sends information from the body's periphery to the brain, promising to aid research on pain ...

Researchers Identify Safer Pathway for Pain Relief

Apr. 8, 2025 — Scientists have helped identify a novel drug compound that selectively activates pain-altering receptors in the body, offering a potentially safer alternative to conventional pain ...

Mindfulness and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Improve Chronic Low Back Pain

Apr. 7, 2025 — Eight weeks of mindfulness or cognitive behavioral therapy were associated with improved pain, physical function and quality of life and reduced daily opioid dose in adults with chronic low back pain ...

New Study Investigates Effects of ADHD Medications on the Heart

Apr. 7, 2025 — A new study has found that medications for ADHD have overall small effects on blood pressure and heart rate after weeks or a few months of use. There have been concerns about the side effects of ADHD ...

New Brain Organoid Model

Apr. 2, 2025 — Organoids have revolutionized science and medicine, providing platforms for disease modeling, drug testing, and understanding developmental processes. While not exact replicas of human organs, they ...

Highly Accurate Blood Test Diagnoses Alzheimer's Disease, Measures Extent of Dementia

Mar. 31, 2025 — A newly developed blood test for Alzheimer's disease not only aids in the diagnosis of the neurodegenerative condition but also indicates how far it has progressed, according to a new ...

Could an Arthritis Drug Unlock Lasting Relief from Epilepsy and Seizures? Promising Results in Mice

Mar. 25, 2025 — A drug typically prescribed for arthritis halts brain-damaging seizures in mice that have a condition like epilepsy, according to researchers. If the drug proves viable for human patients, it would ...