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Painkillers may extend duration of chronic pain

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painkillersNew York:The short-term decision to take painkillers can have devastating consequences of making pain worse and longer lasting, warns new research.

The findings could explain the explosion of painkiller addiction in the past few decades.

“We are showing for the first time that even a brief exposure to opioids can have long-term negative effects on pain,” said lead researcher Peter Grace, assistant research professor at University of Colorado Boulder in the US.

The researchers found that opioids like morphine paradoxically cause an increase in chronic pain in lab rats.

The results suggest that the recent escalation of opioid prescriptions in humans may be a contributor to chronic pain, Grace said.

The study showed that just a few days of morphine treatment caused chronic pain that went on for several months by exacerbating the release of pain signals from specific immune cells in the spinal cord.

“We found the treatment was contributing to the problem,” Grace noted.

The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that a peripheral nerve injury in rats sends a message from damaged nerve cells to spinal cord immune cells known as glial cells, which normally act as “housekeepers” to clear out unwanted debris and microorganisms.

The first signal of pain sends glial cells into an alert mode, priming them for further action.

When the injury was treated with just five days of opioids the glial cells went into overdrive, triggering a cascade of actions, including spinal cord inflammation.

The team discovered that the pain signals from a peripheral injury combined with subsequent morphine treatment worked together to cause a glial cell signalling cascade.

The cascade produces a cell signal from a protein called interleukin-1beta (IL-1b), which increases the activity of pain-responsive nerve cells in the spinal cord and brain.

That can cause increases in pain duration lasting several months.

“The implications for people taking opioids like morphine, oxycodone and methadone are great, since we show the short-term decision to take such opioids can have devastating consequences of making pain worse and longer lasting,” Linda Watkins, professor at University of Colorado Boulder, said.

“This is a very ugly side to opioids that had not been recognised before,” Watkins noted.

Corona

Covid toll in Karnataka is a worrying sign for state government

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Even though Karnataka recorded the lowest number of Covid deaths in April since the virus struck first in 2020, the state is recording a rise in the positivity rate (1.50 per cent). Five people died from the Covid infections in April as per the statistics released by the state health department. In March, the positivity rate stood around 0.53 per cent. In the first week of April it came down to 0.38 per cent, second week registered 0.56 per cent, third week it rose to 0.79 per cent and by end of April the Covid positivity rate touched 1.19 per cent.

on an average 500 persons used to succumb everyday in the peak of Covid infection, as per the data. Health experts said that the mutated Coronavirus is losing its fierce characteristics as vaccination, better treatment facilities and awareness among the people have contributed to the lesser number of Covid deaths.

During the 4th and 6th of April two deaths were reported in Bengaluru, one in Gadag district on April 8, two deaths were reported from Belagavi and Vijayapura on April 30. The first Covid case was reported in the state in March 2020 and three Covid deaths were recorded in the month. In the following month 21 people became victims to the deadly virus, and May 2020 recorded 22 deaths. The death toll recorded everyday after May crossed three digits. However, the third wave, which started in January 2

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