2018-09-02 at 6:51 PM UTC
Interesting
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2178001-opioid-crisis-powerful-but-non-addictive-drug-could-replace-morphine/A new opioid drug blocks pain in monkeys without any apparent addictive or dangerous side-effects.
Opioids like morphine, oxycodone and fentanyl are good at stopping pain but can also be addictive. In the US alone, more than 46 people die every day from overdoses involving prescription opioids.
Mei-Chuan Ko at Wake Forest University in the US and his colleagues found they could simultaneously block pain and prevent addiction using a drug that activates two types of opioid receptors in the brain.
The first receptor – the mu opioid receptor – is the classic pain-relieving receptor targeted by traditional opioids. The second – the nociceptin opioid receptor – blocks the brain’s addiction-forming response, while also providing additional pain relief.
The drug, named AT-121, was 100 times better at reducing pain in monkeys than morphine. Ko and his colleagues assessed this by measuring how long the animals were prepared to keep their tails in uncomfortably warm water at 50°C after taking varying doses of the two drugs.
Stopping addiction
The novel opioid also had no apparent addictive properties. The monkeys in the study readily self-administered oxycodone and cocaine but not AT-121. This is a promising finding because monkeys and humans are close evolutionary relations and have similar addiction mechanisms, says Ko.
Another advantage was that AT-121 didn’t cause breathing problems, even at high doses. Existing opioids are dangerous when taken in excess because they can interfere with people’s ability to breathe.
At the moment, the drug must be administered by injection, but Ko’s team is working on developing a pill form.
The researchers hope to begin a clinical trial of AT-121 in 18 months’ time. If successful, it could become available to consumers in the next 6 years.
Journal reference: Science Translational Medicine, DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aar3483
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2018-09-02 at 6:56 PM UTC
What stock should we buy?
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2018-09-02 at 8:39 PM UTC
They said the same thing about methadone and buprenorphine
2018-09-02 at 9:42 PM UTC
Sudo
Black Hole
[my hereto riemannian peach]
I want now. I need to make friends with some monkeys
Inb4racistjoke
2018-09-02 at 10:03 PM UTC
The jedis must be having a breakdown right now lmao
Dont be surprised if this project disappears and never becomes available for some unspecified reason (money)
2018-09-03 at 8:04 AM UTC
Sounds like a load of horseshit. Like was mentioned in this thread, they said the same thing about all of the synthetic/semi-synthetic opioids.
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2018-09-03 at 10:58 AM UTC
aldra
JIDF Controlled Opposition
friend sent me this the other day
It's presently non-addictive because it doesn't cross the BBB; the only current ROA is via the spinal column which doesn't really allow for self-administration.
Do some tolerance testing once you have a viable delivery method, faggots
I'll bet it's significantly more addictive given its potency
2018-09-03 at 11:02 AM UTC
People - even Doctors - seem to think that drugs can be developed to become better like phones or cars, and a new drug is going to be better than an old drug.
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2018-09-03 at 2:30 PM UTC
>tfw no non-addictive opioid gf
why even live?
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