Painkiller News and Research

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Subsidised antimalarial drugs: an interview with Kara Hanson

Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) are the currently recommended drugs for treating malaria. However, they are expensive, which limits their affordability. This means that people with malaria are likely to buy cheaper, less effective antimalarials such as chloroquine and sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine; or to simply buy painkillers and antipyretics.

25 Jan 2013

Neuromuscular blockade (NMB) reversal

General anesthesia is made up of three components: hypnotic medicines, to induce sleep; analgesics, or medicines to inhibit pain; and NMB agents that induce muscle relaxation. Anesthesiology professionals use NMB to relax a patient’s muscles and prevent involuntary movement that could impact surgery.

24 Jan 2013

Extended sleep takes the pain out of mild chronic sleep loss

Increased sleep time and reduced sleepiness in mildly sleepy, but otherwise healthy, individuals increases alertness and in turn reduces pain sensitivity, US researchers have found.

28 Dec 2012

NIDA's 2012 Monitoring the Future survey shows rates stable or down for most drugs

Continued high use of marijuana by the nation's eighth, 10th and 12th graders combined with a drop in perceptions of its potential harms was revealed in this year's Monitoring the Future survey, an annual survey of eighth, 10th, and 12th-graders conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan.

20 Dec 2012

Arthritis, rheumatism and total joint arthroplasty: an interview with Dr Ravi and Dr Hawker

Arthritis translates to “joint inflammation.” The most common form of arthritis is osteoarthritis (OA), which affects 12-15% of North Americans over the age of 60, and will increase in prevalence as our population ages.

19 Dec 2012

Whiplash recovery no quicker with intensive therapy

More costly, intensive treatment works no better than usual care at speeding up recovery from whiplash injuries, according to new research published Online First in The Lancet.

18 Dec 2012

Today's teens and young people more likely to abuse prescription painkillers

Today's teens and young people are abusing prescription painkillers more than any other age group or any other youth in history. Availability of these drugs from their parents' medicine cabinets may be to blame, according to new research in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

30 Nov 2012

Personality influences placebo response

Researchers have found that resilient, altruistic, and straightforward individuals are significantly more likely to respond to a sham painkilling or placebo injection than those who are angry and hostile.

21 Nov 2012

Personality traits linked with individual's susceptibility to placebo effect from pain medicines

Personality traits might do more than help you win a popularity contest. According to new University of Michigan-led neuroscience research, co-authored by University of Maryland (UM) School of Dentistry Dean Christian S. Stohler, DMD, DrMedDent, such traits also might make you more likely to get pain relief from a placebo - a fake medicine.

17 Nov 2012

Sickle cell disease treatments: An interview with Dr Niihara, CEO of Emmaus Medical

Sickle cell disease is a devastating hereditary condition that affects millions of people, particularly those in West and Central Africa as well as people of African descent in the United States, Europe and South America.

23 Oct 2012

Roundup: Ore. lawmakers petition for separate dental care; Docs failing to check drug registry in Colo.

The state is inviting public comment on how dentists fit with reforms of the Oregon Health Plan. Last week, two lawmakers and a dental executive submitted a petition to the Oregon Health Authority asking that dental care remain separate until 2017 from the state's new coordinated care organizations (CCOs), provider networks set up to integrate services, manage spending and reward prevention in the care of low-income members of the Medicaid-funded system.

19 Oct 2012

An expanded role for some nurses?

A federal agency is weighing whether to reimburse a specialized type of nurse for giving chronic-pain treatments, a move opposed by some doctors and one that critics say could complicate the battle against prescription painkiller abuse.

4 Oct 2012

First Edition: October 3, 2012

Kaiser Health News staff writer Jordan Rau reports: "Medicare's new readmission penalties for hospitals just got a bit tougher. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has discovered errors in its initial calculations in August. As a result, 1,422 hospitals with comparatively high readmission rates will lose slightly more money than they were expecting, according to a Kaiser Health News analysis of the revised penalties. Fifty-five hospitals will lose less than were previously told."

3 Oct 2012

Anesthetics and proteins: understanding the interactions

Spanish scientists at the University of the Basque Region and the University of La Rioja have combined mass-resolved electronic spectroscopy and ab initio calculations to model the interactions of anesthetics with proteins.

24 Sep 2012

Many states do not fully analyze data on fatal prescription painkiller overdoses

Prescription painkillers are responsible for more fatal overdoses in the United States than heroin and cocaine combined. And while most states have programs to curb abuse and addiction, a new report from Brandeis University shows that many states do not fully analyze the data they collect.

21 Sep 2012

Partially-matched bone marrow transplants can eliminate sickle cell disease in some patients

In a preliminary clinical trial, investigators at Johns Hopkins have shown that even partially-matched bone marrow transplants can eliminate sickle cell disease in some patients, ridding them of painful and debilitating symptoms, and the need for a lifetime of pain medications and blood transfusions.

21 Sep 2012

NIH funded researchers identify and explore different aspects of anesthesia

Anesthesia helps many of us during our lives, whether we need a local painkiller at the dentist, numbing eye drops for laser vision correction or general anesthesia for major surgery. But even though anesthetics have been used in many procedures for more than 150 years, doctors and scientists still don't know exactly how these medicines work in the body.

5 Sep 2012

Chronic nerve pain: an interview with Professor Sally Lawson

Chronic nerve pain results from pathological changes within a nerve that appear to be self-sustaining and thus the pain continues for a long time.

30 Aug 2012

Pharmacists and carers unsure about paracetamol doses for children with obesity

The correct therapeutic dose is important for this commonly used painkiller, say the authors, because it is potentially fatal to give too high a dose; and too low a dose may result in more serious illness.

21 Aug 2012

Electronic PMP use may have impact on demand for drug treatment programs, painkiller abuse

A Rhode Island Hospital researcher has found that the use of electronic prescription drug monitoring programs (PMPs) may have a significant impact on the demand for drug treatment programs and how prescribers detect and respond to abuse of painkillers.

17 Aug 2012