Testing It Up

The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) had launched a new online training program that will improve the way doctors prescribe painkillers to patients.

The training materials include videos of doctor-patient conversations on the safe and effective use of opioid pain medications, as well as two online continuing medical education (CME) modules for doctors.

“It’s no coincidence that our strategy to address our nation’s prescription drug abuse epidemic begins with education,” said Gil Kerlikowske, Director of National Drug Control Policy, in a news release.  “All of us – parents, patients, and prescribers – have a shared responsibility to learn more about this challenge and act to save lives.  Prescribers in particular play a critical role in this national effort and I strongly encourage them to take advantage of this training to ensure the safe and appropriate use of painkillers.”

NIDA Director Nora D. Volkow added that the CME courses will offer healthcare providers practical instruction in screening pain patients before prescribing medications. Additionally, the modules will help medical professionals in identifying when patients are already abusing their prescription medicines.

“Physicians can be the first line of defense against prescription drug abuse by knowing how to prescribe opioid pain medications safely and effectively,” Volkow said.

Morphine and heroin are drugs used to relieve moderate to severe pain in patients. However, there have been some studies that claim people who are using them on a long-term basis are developing addiction to opioids medications. This somehow adds to the increasing substance abuse problem that’s happening in many developing countries, but a new study seems to have found a solution that can reduce instances of addiction in people who use opioids.

A group of researchers from the University of Adelaide and the University of Colorado performed a study that reveals the possibility of blocking morphine and heroin addiction via the immune system of the brain.

The study, to be published in the Journal of Neuroscience, shows that the drug (+)naloxone blocks the immune-addiction response without changing the brain’s wiring.

The drug (+)naloxone is a non-opioid mirror image drug created by Dr. Kenner Rice in the 1970s.

According to the researchers, targeting a key structure called TDR4 can help in dealing with drug addiction.

Dr. Mark Hutchinson, ARC Research Fellow in the University of Adelaide’s School of Medical Sciences, said “Opioid drugs such as morphine and heroin bind to TLR4 in a similar way to the normal immune response to bacteria. The problem is that TLR4 then acts as an amplifier for addiction.”

The recent study demonstrates proof that there could be a way to block addiction by going after the brain’s immune response that amplifies drug addiction. And so the researchers are helpful that their findings will be a catalyst for the creation of a drug that will help people on morphine for pain relief without making the person addicted to the drug.

“This work fundamentally changes what we understand about opioids, reward and addiction. We’ve suspected for some years that TLR4 may be the key to blocking opioid addiction, but now we have the proof,”  said Professor Linda Watkins, from the Center for Neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder and the senior author of the study.