Opioids Work Really, Really Well… But We Don't Know Why

Captions provided by CCTubes – Captioning the Internet! Painkillers are incredibly good at managing pain, but the mechanism of action isn’t fully understood. What do we know about how they work?

Why Some People Don’t Feel Pain – https://youtu.be/wMxzRpImPgo
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Nonaddictive Opioid Alternatives Could Come From Chili Peppers
https://www.seeker.com/nonaddictive-opioid-alternatives-could-come-from-chili-peppers-2156158749.html
“Chronic pain. You can’t live with it. And living without it is dangerous.The United States is in the midst of an opioid addiction epidemic – much of it initiated by chronic pain. On an average day in the U.S., 650,000 opioid prescriptions – such as Vicodin and Oxycontin – are dispensed, 580 people start using heroin, and 78 people die from an opioid overdose.”

U.S. Women Painkiller Deaths Up 400 Percent
https://www.seeker.com/us-women-painkiller-deaths-up-400-percent-1767632482.html
“Women in the United States are dying from overdoses of prescription painkillers at an alarming rate, with five times more deaths in 2010 than 1999, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.”

Opioids – mechanisms of action
https://www.nps.org.au/australian-prescriber/articles/opioids-mechanisms-of-action
“Opioid drugs, typified by morphine, produce their pharmacological actions, including analgesia, by acting on receptors located on neuronal cell membranes. The presynaptic action of opioids to inhibit neurotransmitter release is considered to be their major effect in the nervous system.”

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Special thanks to Sapna Parikh for hosting and writing this episode of Seeker!
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