For years, opioids such as morphine and oxycodone have been used to relieve pain. Unfortunately, opioids are highly addictive, and overprescription of opioids, especially for chronic pain, has resulted in addiction, tolerance, and physical dependence. A rise in cases of opioid addiction and opioid-related deaths has become what we now call the opioid crisis. Recent discoveries have found that yanhusuo (YHS), a traditional Chinese herb, may be promising in curbing this opioid epidemic.
YHS is currently marketed in the U.S. as a dietary supplement but has long been used in Chinese medicine as a pain reliever. Multiple studies have found that YHS improves blood circulation and alleviates pain caused by “blood stasis”, or the pooling of blood that isn’t circulating properly. More recently, YHS has been shown to relieve pain in animal models of acute, inflammatory, and neuropathic pain — the three main categories for which opioids are prescribed.
Yanhusuo may be a powerful tool for stopping the opioid epidemic.
Image Source: sorbetto
A recent study by the University of California, Irvine’s School of Pharmacy suggests that co-administering YHS with morphine can produce the same pain-relieving effects as morphine alone and without the risk for addiction or dependence. This occurs because YHS inhibits dopamine receptors, which are part of the main neurological reward system that causes addiction. By preventing the pleasurable feelings that dopamine usually creates, YHS reduces the risk of developing an addiction to morphine. Without addiction, the dose of morphine required to treat pain will not increase over time, thus mitigating tolerance and therefore also reducing the risk of overdose. Additionally, the study found that YHS increases the efficacy of morphine, which further reduces the amount of morphine that needs to be administered.
Because YHS is readily available and has long since been proven to be safe for human consumption, promising results from future studies, involving human clinical trials, may have an immediate positive impact in reducing and even reversing the opioid epidemic.
Featured Image Source: JEGAS RA
