Could you become an opioid addict? We may soon have a test for that.
The only way we know how to deal with opioid addiction is after the fact — only after a person has become hooked.
But what if one day there were a genetic test that could spot whether a person was susceptible to opioid abuse later in life? It would be like 23andMe, but instead of telling whether someone is predisposed to heart disease, this would tell us whether someone might be at risk for opioid dependency.
A New Jersey-based research institute along with scientists, academics and medical leaders is trying to crack this genetic code underlying opioid addiction.
The Coriell Institute for Medical Research, Cooper University Health Care and Cooper Medical School of Rowan University have partnered to launch the Camden Opioid Research Initiative, which will investigate the genetic and biological factors that contribute to opioid abuse.
One delicate but vital part of the study will be collecting and testing the tissue samples of people who have died from opioid overdoses.
Researchers will also be studying people being treated for opioid addiction as well as people who are receiving opioids for chronic pain but are not addicted to them. The team will then compare the findings of these groups.
“The dream would be in 10 or 20 years … some sort of profile or algorithm that would give doctors some useful information — patients with genetic factors that might influence those things. And that’s the idea, to make the information available to physicians,” said Stefan Zajic, principal research scientist and scientific lead for CORI.
Zajic said many addicts’ first encounter with opioids are prescription pills they got from a doctor. While regulations have improved prescription opioid abuse in recent years, many people are still getting hooked from prescribed medication.
But a genetic test showing who might have a predisposition to opioid dependency would give doctors a profile of who is or is not at risk, allowing them to adjust what they prescribe.
“Many people are still encountering opioids in the form of prescriptions,” Zajic said. “So we thought if some patients were predisposed to a use problem … they could be prescribed with nonopioid (medications), something more mild, or they could adjust the dose or they could adjust the number of pills and just monitor a little more closely.”
In 2018, more than 3,000 people died in New Jersey from opioid overdoses, a death toll that set a state record for the fourth year, according to preliminary data collected by the state Attorney General’s Office.
The samples from those who have died from opioid overdoses will play an essential role in the study.
With the help of the medical examiner’s office and permission of families, the team will establish a biobank of those tissue samples, which Zajic believes will be the first of its kind in the country and will be made available to researchers studying opioid abuse for the years to come.
Drug deaths in N.J. break record for 4th straight year. Why is this happening?
Opioids may not be more widespread, but they have become more deadly.
“This initiative has the potential to define risk factors for opioid addiction and develop strategies to prevent people from developing opioid use disorder and to thereby save lives,” Dr. Annette Reboli, dean of Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, said in a statement. “This collaboration is perhaps one of the most important we could undertake for the health of so many at-risk individuals.”
The toxicology research on those who have died from opioid overdoses may also save lives on the streets of Camden, where the research is being conducted. If a bad batch of heroin is going around the city’s neighborhoods, causing a spike in overdoses, instead of waiting a typical month to learn that information from public health officials, the team would be able to learn that in almost realtime from its research.
“That is information we could share to public health officials,” Zajic said, particularly if it’s a heroin supply that has been laced with fentanyl, which has been causing a rise in overdoses in recent years.
“By sharing these samples, they may actually be helping prevent other deaths,” he added.
Then there is this psychological profile test to help isolate people that have a tendency towards an addictive personality… but.. few in healthcare seem to use it when dealing with the prescribing of opiates .. especially long term https://www.scribd.com/document/346103162/SOAPP-R
Filed under: General Problems
Propensity will considered as certainty!
No medication for you – and flag your children too…
Well they can see who will hyper-react or is a low metabolizer, but severe pain still comes first and ya still can’t ‘force test’ folk.
No test….. no medication.
When I read crap I mean stuff about “opioid epidemic” funny how the
ones reporting always seem to hold back on the “full” story. Like for example “2018 there was 3000 deaths from “opioid OD’s”. If they were to tell the “whole” story.it might be a little different. Like when they OD on heroin why don’t they say they OD on heroin? Same goes with ILLEGAL FENTANYL,why not say OD was from illegal fentanyl?
Oh I think I know……It might blow up there “agenda!” There is no “opioid crisis!” with prescription opioids!! That’s a fact!! The “CRISIS” is the illegal drugs coming in through our border and China! That’s the “CRISIS!!”
“THEY PLAY” the general population as morons thinking they can blow this charade on us!!
Yes, you do know.
The most perfect method to diagnose propensity of addiction in a person is through the science of terrain homeopathy. This is available now, but people ignore it. Learn about it on the video page of http://www.doctorsofcourage.org.
People have genes for the propensity for a lot of diseases–diabetes or cancer, for example. But that doesn’t mean they will have the disease. That is caused by toxicity.
Really?????
Addiction comes from the brain and if they could read the brain it would be top secret. A gene gene test would be wrong because you can take a family of five. Each child has common genes but different personalities. 2 of the 5 may be alcoholics so it looks like they will say all 5 could be alcoholics so you all are denied pain meds.
Total BS I don’t trust them!!
I ABSOLUTELY know what you mean, it is TOTAL BS and I will never trust them either. I personally know of “a family of five siblings” with alcoholism in many, many ancestors and amongst SOME, but not ALL the siblings. One, no alcoholism, one always been an alcoholic since teen years and also for years has drank alcohol while taking pain meds, one turned alcoholic in late middle age and one turned into a crackhead at age 63 years old. Also, EVERY one of the siblings has had to have MULTIPLE surgeries on their necks (cervical spine) as well as MULTIPLE surgeries on the lumbar area of their spine. This was EVERY one of five siblings. The last one, STILL is NOT an addict at age 55 years, and has chosen not to drink alcohol AT ALL, due to the known dangers of mixing pain meds with alcohol.