Health

Exploring opioid deaths in chronic pain patients

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Research has found that over half of patients who died from an opioid overdose had been diagnosed with chronic pain and many had psychiatric disorders. The study was conducted by researchers at Columbia University. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the number of opioid-related deaths has quadrupled in recent years, from 8,048 in 1999, to 33,091 in 2015, and the researchers were interested in learning more about what lead those patients to take opioids. The researchers analyzed clinical diagnoses and filled medication prescriptions for 13,089 adults in the Medicaid program who died of an opioid overdose from data collected between 2001 and 2007. During the last year of life, more than half of these adults (61.5%) had been diagnosed with chronic pain and many had also been diagnosed with depression and anxiety. This included 59.3% who were diagnosed with … Read more

Opioid pain relievers to reduce overdose risk

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Researchers at the The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in Florida have developed opioid pain relievers that do not slow or stop breathing which is the cause of overdose. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 91 Americans die every day from opioid overdoses when opiates like heroin, oxycontin, and fentanyl slow and later stop a person’s breathing. The research shows that a range of compounds can deliver pain-blocking potency without affecting respiration. The study builds on two decades of research, where the researchres have long explored whether the painkilling pathway, the G protein pathway, could be unlinked from the breathing suppression pathway, the beta-arrestin pathway. The researchers had their doubts about being able to separate out the pathways and also wanted to know how much separation was needed to see analgesia without respiratory suppression. For the study, the researchers worked to develop … Read more

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy may help with Alzheimer’s disease

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A study by researchers at Tel Aviv University shows that hyperbaric oxygen treatments may help improve symptoms by patients who have Alzheimer’s disease. Putting someone in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber has been shown in the past to be extremely effective in treating wounds slow to heal. Professional sports athletes, including even Lebron James, have used hyperbaric oxygen chambers to help them better perform in their respective sports. See http://www.slamonline.com/media/slam-tv/lebron-james-recharges-hyperbaric-chamber/. The researchers have shown for the first time that hyperbaric oxygen therapy can actually improve the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease and even correct behavioral deficits associated with the disease. Patients who undergo hyperbaric oxygen therapy breathe in pure oxygen in a pressurized room or chamber. In the chamber, the air pressure is increased to twice that of normal air. When this occurs, oxygen solubility in the blood increases and is transported by … Read more

Gum to Test for Inflammation in Mouth

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Researchers from the University of Würzburg in Germany have developed a chewing gum that is capable of detecting inflammation in the mouth. The research was motivated by the fact that 6% to 15% of patients who receive dental implants develop an inflammatory response in in the years that follow. This is caused by bacteria destroying the soft tissue and the bone around the dental implant. The researchers provided proof of a principle by using studies of the saliva of patients at Merli Dental Clinic in Rimini. They showed that in the presence of inflammatory conditions, specific protein-degrading enzymes are activated in the mouth. These same enzymes break down a special ingredient of chewing gum within five minutes to release a bittering agent that could not be tasted before. In the future, patients will benefit from this method using a chewing gum diagnostic test … Read more

Nanodiamonds to Help With Root Canal Recovery

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Researchers at UCLA found in a clinical trial that nanodiamonds protected disinfected root canals after the nerve and pulp were removed. This result may help people who undergo root canals as it could help prevent infection after treatment. Specifically combining nanodiamonds with gutta percha, a material used to fill disinfected root canals, may enhance the gutta percha’s protective properties. Nanodiamonds are tiny particles made of carbon and are very very small. Nanodiamonds have previously been explored to deliver drugs and serve as imaging agents. Protecting disinfected root canals is a delicate process. Dentists use gutta percha to block bacteria from infiltrating the tooth, but it can break during the procedure or create pockets of space for bacteria to infiltrate. The researchers tested nanodiamond-embedded gutta percha (NDGP) in three people who undergoing root canal procedures. These tests demonstrated the implanted material NDGP … Read more