Researchers believe that they have made a huge step forward in the fight against chronic pain.
A team from the University of Copenhagen recently developed a new treatment for helping to alleviate pain, and preliminary studies have shown that it is incredibly effective. So far, this treatment has only been studied in mice, so there is a long way to go before the compound can be prescribed to humans, but this is a big step forward, especially in light of the issues that have arisen with the use of other painkillers, namely opioids.
This new method is a targeted system and does not focus on the neuronal system as a whole like traditional painkillers do. Instead, it focuses on the area where pain is located. It only impacts the nerves that are being targeted by disease. It looks like this treatment will be ideal for individuals that experience pain because of surgery, diabetes, or another major condition or disease. The spokesperson for the research team indicated that this breakthrough has been more than ten years in the making. Clinical trials are the next step.
They published their findings in the journal, EMBO Molecular Medicine.
Chronic pain affects about 10 percent of the adult population in the United States. When it comes to seniors, that number is much higher. Some estimates put this number as high as 88 percent of the elderly dealing with this issue. Either way, it is a major problem in the U.S. and the rest of the world. This is one of the reasons why the opioid epidemic has had such a major toll. There are a lot of people dealing with pain and there are not a lot of good solutions out there for helping people to cope with it. Hopefully, the research that this team and others are doing will have big dividends down the road.
Chronic pain impacts about 10 percent of all adults, the vast majority of whom are senior citizens. New steps forward in treating this might be coming soon.
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