Opioid Prevalence in the United States

In 2013, physicians across the country collectively wrote about 25 million prescriptions for different opioid medications. Opioids are medically used to lessen moderate to severe pain in patients, but can very easily be mishandled or incorrectly mixed with additional prescription medications, resulting in a variety of negative side effects. Many patients being treated with opioids struggle with tolerance and dependency issues, and approximately twelve percent of these patients develop a disorder due to and related to their opioid usage. This increase in accessibility and neglect of proper medical supervision led to a widespread misuse issue of several different forms of prescription opioids, such as Oxycodone and Hydrocodone. 

Although there are other more well-known opioids being misused such as heroin and fentanyl, research has shown that prescription drugs remain significant contributors to the opioid crisis. In order to combat this nationally-recognized issue, both the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service and the National Institution of Health developed a set of main initiatives, including the increased research aimed toward designing pharmaceutical alternatives for opioid medications, as well as studying the specific nature of opioids themselves in order to improve upon the current medications being distributed.

In the study “Mu Opioid Splice Variant MOR-1K Contributes to the Development of Opioid-Induced Hyperalgesia,” researchers isolated and studied a certain negative characteristic of opioids. At times, patients receiving opioid medication for chronic pain management actually experienced heightened sensitivity to pain, rather than a decrease. In order to determine where this operational error occurred, researchers identified a genetic variant of a opioid receptor (Mu receptor MOR-1) that contained a variation in the splice site where coding and non-coding regions are supposed to separate. An abnormal variation in a splice site like what occurs in the MOR-1K variant disturbs the separation of these two segments, producing a receptor that functions slightly differently from the rest. In this here considered study, the MOR-1K receptor variant leads to decreased response to opioids, as well as an increase in surrounding cellular activity. 

Although this study considers a seemingly very small portion of the many aspects that contributes to opioid reception and function within the human body, it represents a pattern of opioid-concentrated research that directly impacts a massive community in the U.S. Studies like this one add another piece of information to the scientific and medical community’s collective understanding of the nuances of opioid structure and function. 

“Opioid Overdose.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 29 Aug. 2017, www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/opioids/prescribed.html.

Abuse, National Institute on Drug. “Opioid Overdose Crisis.” NIDA, 1 June 2017, www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/opioids/opioid-overdose-crisis.

Oladosu FA, Conrad MS, O’Buckley SC, Rashid NU, Slade GD, Nackley AG (2015) Mu Opioid Splice Variant MOR-1K Contributes to the Development of Opioid-Induced Hyperalgesia. PLoS ONE 10(8): e0135711. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0135711