Opium News

December 22, 2024

Top Headlines

Exposure to Marijuana in the Womb May Increase Risk of Addiction to Opioids Later in Life, Study Finds

Nov. 14, 2024 — Evidence has been growing to suggest that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, poses risks to the developing fetus by impacting brain development. Now a new ...

Men and Women Process Pain Differently, Study Finds

Oct. 16, 2024 — According to new research, men and women rely on different biological systems for pain relief, which could help explain why our most powerful pain medications are often less effective in ...

Tiny Antibodies to Fight the Dangerous Effects of Opioids

Oct. 9, 2024 — Opioid drugs are highly effective at relieving pain but come with severe drawbacks. Their side effects range from dizziness to potentially fatal respiratory depression. Their illegal use contributes to nearly half a million deaths worldwide each ...

Sep. 25, 2024 — Researchers have identified a potential new approach to address the opioid overdose epidemic. Semaglutide was shown to lower opioid overdoses in people with opioid-use disorder and type 2 ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:00pm EST

Reducing Risk of Opioid Addiction While Alleviating Pain

Dec. 2, 2024 — Increasing the levels of chemicals naturally produced in the body called endocannabinoids may thwart the highly addictive nature of opioids such as morphine and oxycodone while maintaining the drugs' ...

Study Finds Use of Naloxone by Good Samaritans Is Up, but Not Nearly Enough

Oct. 14, 2024 — Use of a lifesaving drug to reverse opioid drug overdoses is growing, but not fast ...

Researchers Seek to Improve Advanced Pain Management Using AI for Drug Discovery

Oct. 4, 2024 — An estimated one in five Americans live with chronic pain and current treatment options leave much to be desired. Scientists are now using artificial ...

Ultra-Low-Dose Ketamine Can Curb Opioid Withdrawal

Sep. 17, 2024 — A pilot study showed that a small amount of ketamine can reduce or eliminate the withdrawal symptoms associated with quitting ...

Mechanisms of How Morphine Relieves Pain Mapped out

Aug. 29, 2024 — Researchers describe the neural processes behind how morphine relieves pain. This is valuable knowledge because the drug has such serious side ...

An Implantable Sensor Could Reverse Opioid Overdoses

Aug. 14, 2024 — A new implantable sensor could reverse opioid overdoses. The device rapidly releases naloxone when an overdose is ...

New Analgesic Could Replace Opioids Over the Long Term

July 17, 2024 — Opioids have long been known as natural substances with substantial pharmacological effect. They have been used as effective painkillers. Researchers have now identified a natural active substance ...

Designing Safer Opioids

July 17, 2024 — Opioid medications offer people relief from debilitating pain, but these drugs come with dangers: the risk for addiction, miserable withdrawal symptoms and the potential for fatal overdose. ...

Research Shows Protein Isoform Inhibitors May Hold the Key to Making Opioids Safer

July 16, 2024 — Researchers have identified a new way to make opioids safer, increasing the pain-relieving properties of opioids while decreasing unwanted side ...

Visualizing Addiction: How New Research Could Change the Way We Fight the Opioid Epidemic

July 15, 2024 — New research could transform how we understand the way opioids affect the brain. Despite significant discussion surrounding the ongoing opioid ...

First Pediatric Guideline on Opioid Prescribing in Primary Care Focuses on Preventing Overdose

Oct. 31, 2024 — With its emphasis on opioid overdose prevention, the first guideline for primary care providers from the American Academy of Pediatrics on prescribing opioids for acute pain in children and ...

Methadone Much More Effective Than Buprenorphine/naloxone for Treatment Retention, With No Difference in Mortality Risk, Study Finds

Oct. 21, 2024 — People with opioid use disorder in British Columbia who received methadone had a 37- to 40-percent lower rate of treatment discontinuation compared with those who received buprenorphine/naloxone. The ...

Higher Doses of Buprenorphine May Improve Treatment Outcomes for People With Opioid Use Disorder

Sep. 25, 2024 — Adults with opioid use disorder who receive a higher daily dose of the opioid addiction treatment medication buprenorphine may have a lower risk of subsequent emergency department visits or use of ...

Nonfatal Opioid Overdoses in Youth Spiked During Pandemic

Sep. 19, 2024 — Drug overdose mortality has risen faster among adolescents than the general population in recent years, largely due to fentanyl, a potent opioid pain medication. A new study sheds light on trends in ...

Methamphetamine-Involved Psychiatric Hospitalizations Have Increased, Study Says

Aug. 16, 2024 — A new study that details trends among psychiatric hospitalizations between 2015-2019 finds that while most hospitalizations did not involve any substances, methamphetamine-related hospitalizations ...

Many Youths Continue to Take Opioids Months After Surgical Procedures

July 11, 2024 — A multi-institutional study found that 1 in 6 youths fill an opioid prescription prior to surgery, and 3% of patients were still filling opioid prescriptions three to six months after surgery, ...

Researchers Identify Brain Region Involved in Oxycodone Relapse

July 9, 2024 — Even years after they have recovered, a person who once struggled with alcohol or opioid addiction can relapse--and that relapse is more likely to occur during particularly stressful times. Now, ...

Brain Neurotransmitter Receptor Antagonist Found to Prevent Opioid Addiction in Mice

July 9, 2024 — New research has found a drug that treats insomnia works to prevent the addictive effects of the morphine opioids in mice while still providing effective pain ...

Experimental Drug Supercharges Medicine That Reverses Opioid Overdose

July 3, 2024 — Researchers have identified a compound that, in mice, makes naloxone much more effective at counteracting a drug ...

Study Examines Care Following Nonfatal Overdose Among; Identifies Effective Interventions and Gaps in Care

June 17, 2024 — Researchers found that among a cohort of 137,000 Medicare beneficiaries who experienced a nonfatal overdose in 2020, almost 24,000 (17.4%) experienced a subsequent nonfatal overdose, and about 1,300 ...

Myelination in the Brain May Be Key to 'Learning' Opioid Addiction

June 5, 2024 — Scientists have found that the process of adaptive myelination, which helps the brain learn new skills, can also promote addiction to ...

Faster Approach for Starting Extended-Release Naltrexone to Treat Opioid Use Disorder Shown Effective

May 8, 2024 — Starting people with opioid use disorder on extended-release, injectable naltrexone (XR-naltrexone) within five to seven days of seeking treatment is more effective than the standard treatment method ...

A Common Pathway in the Brain That Enables Addictive Drugs to Hijack Natural Reward Processing

Apr. 18, 2024 — Researchers have uncovered a mechanism in the brain that allows cocaine and morphine to take over natural reward processing ...

New Data Identifies Trends in Accidental Opioid Overdoses in Children

Apr. 17, 2024 — The US saw a 22% decline in rates of prescription-opioid overdose related emergency department (ED) visits in children 17 and younger between 2008 and 2019, but an uptick in the early part of the ...

Molecular Causes of Different Functions of Opioid Receptors

Apr. 12, 2024 — Drugs that target opioid receptors sometimes have severe side effects. Thousands of people around the world die every day from overdoses involving opioids such as fentanyl. Researchers have taken a ...

Early Identification of Persistent Pain Plus Holistic Interventions Cut Opioid Use

Mar. 20, 2024 — In a new study, researchers found that a carefully worded, short questionnaire successfully identified people who were most likely to develop chronic pain. These patients were then steered to a more ...

Researchers Uncover Potential Non-Opioid Treatment for Chronic Pain

Jan. 31, 2024 — A new approach to treating neuropathic pain is making a key step forward. Neuropathic pain is among the most difficult types of pain to alleviate and current treatments are often ineffective. ...

Surgery Patients Now Less Likely to Get Opioids -- But Decline Has Slowed

Dec. 7, 2023 — Post-surgery pain relief has shifted away from opioid-containing medications over the past seven years, but the downward trend has slowed since 2020, a new study shows. Overall, the rate of ...

No Evidence Found That Cannabis Reduces Long Term Opioid Use, Study Shows

Nov. 29, 2023 — A 20-year study examined the long term relationship between cannabis and illicit opioid use. Overall results were inconsistent and showed no strong link. The study showed that clinicians and ...

Opioid Disorder Treatment: First Three Weeks Forecast Success

Nov. 3, 2023 — A newly developed prediction model may be able to calculate the risk of opioid relapse among individuals in the early stages of medication treatment -- as early as three weeks into ...