In “Soldier Jane”-master chief John James ARGAL says seals: “Pain is your friend. She will let you know if you are seriously injured, it will not give you rest irritating you, it will remind you of what you need to finish the job and get home. But I know that the main thing? Pain means you are still alive.”
And he’s right. Pain is necessary for us, because it signaling system of the body. Can you imagine what would have happened if we could grab a hot iron and never feel? However, for many diseases pain syndrome becomes a separate problem: it causes suffering, exhausting, deprive of normal life.
For these cases, American scientists have developed without exaggeration, a revolutionary drug. It relieves pain 100 times more effective than morphine and not addictive. Has named AT-121. While it is unknown how it works on humans, but in monkeys, the drug has shown impressive results. They are published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
Scientists put animals in special cages where they could choose any narcotic, including cocaine and oxycodone: it monkeys you just had to press the lever. And then they tried to convince to AT-121.
It turned out that the animals not only became addicted, but they even began to refuse other drugs. Analgesic effect as a drug for substitution therapy, but it has not caused new forms of dependence. In addition, to relieving pain it has shown itself as efficient as morphine, only a hundred times lower dosage.
“This substance blocks the potential for abuse of pharmaceutical opioids, so we hope that it can be used to treat not only pain, but opioid dependence,” commented one of the developers of medicine, Professor of pharmacology Mei Chuan Ko.
The researchers plan to conduct several experiments on animals, and then go to volunteers. If the drug has proved its safety and efficacy, perhaps humanity will be able to defeat opioid addiction. Now funds are based on opium are considered to be the most powerful “weapon” of anesthesia. However, they affect the brain in two ways: on the one hand, block pain signals, on the other – stimulates the pleasure center. In the end, patients get used to the feeling of pleasure, and they develop a relationship.
Did you know that if you take painkillers grapefruit juice can you die? 5 more deadly combination – in the article “Incompatible drugs and drinks”.