In a new study from the University of Queensland, researchers found people who are prescribed opioids for pain relief have a higher risk of developing mood disorders such as anxiety.
The study is published in Pain Medicine and was conducted by Dr. Janni Leung et al.
The use of prescription opioids for the management of chronic pain has increased remarkably, with more than 191 million opioid prescriptions given to patients in the United States in 2017.
There has been a lot of research around addiction to opioids—commonly used in cancer treatment or acute pain—but there is limited understanding about how they affect the development of mood disorders.
In the study, the team systematically reviewed the effects of prescribed opioids on mental health.
They reviewed studies of patients who were prescribed opioids to treat painful physical health conditions, including burns and trauma surgery.
The team compared these samples with individuals who were not using opioids or were prescribed lower dosages.
The results showed that higher doses of prescription opioids might increase the risk of developing depressive, bipolar and anxiety disorders, particularly with prolonged use.
The team says the relationship between chronic pain and mental health is complex, as each condition contributes to the other.
Over the past two decades, the prescription of opioids for pain management has increased.
Research into the influence of opioids on mental health is still in the early stages, and further research is needed to find out how the medication affects different mood disorders.
The team says the effects on mental health should be taken into account when prescribing opioids, especially in individuals who are at risk of mood disorders such as anxiety or depression.
It’s incredibly important to understand the role opioids play in the development of these mood disorders to ensure people are receiving the care and treatment they require, without putting them at high risk.
Related: Using marijuana for pain relief may cause these symptoms
Previous studies have found that opioid use may increase the risks of other diseases, such as cancer.
One study from Rush University and published in PLOS ONE found that opioid use might increase a person’s risk of developing pancreatic cancer.
Opioids have been shown to have a harmful effect on multiple types of cancer with recent data suggesting opium use as a possible risk factor for pancreatic cancer in West Central Asia.
Population-based studies have suggested opium use to increase the risk of pancreatic cancer in a dose-dependent manner.
In that study, the team examined the link between opioid use and the changes in the rates of pancreatic cancer during the years 1999-2016.
Using the Center for Disease Control’s Wonder online data, the team extracted the opioid death rate as a surrogate for prescription and illicit opioid use.
They evaluated whether the trend in opioid usage could explain increasing pancreatic cancer diagnoses at the national and state levels over time.
They found that both pancreatic cancer and opioid death rates rose over time at the national and state levels.
A prior state’s opioid death rate significantly predicted the trend in the incidence of pancreatic cancer years after and had a big effect on the estimated annual change in the rate of this cancer.
The data suggest a link between opioid consumption and the risk of pancreatic cancer.
The team says it is important to directly establish the role of opioids as a novel risk factor for pancreatic cancer is to conduct large population-based studies or longitudinal datasets that reliably register long-term outcomes in opioid users.
Findings from this study, once confirmed by the individual-level data on opioid consumption and risk of pancreatic cancer, could have direct clinical relevance by considering non-narcotic (alternative) pain control approaches in these patients.
If you care about pain, please read studies about 7 common causes of hip pain you need to know, and lower dose of this depression drug can effectively reduce pain.
For more information about pain management, please see recent studies about new way to treat chronic pain without opioids, and these 3 antibiotics could offer alternative to addictive opioid pain relievers.
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