Mind Over Matter: Testing a Non-opioid Pain Relief Alternative

By Jonathan Springston, Associate Managing Editor, AHC Media

A group of scientists say they have discovered that the human brain contains a pathway for pain relief that relies less on pills and more on natural remedies.

Researchers noted that because opioid and non-opioid pain relief mechanisms interact synergistically, the results of their study suggest combining mindfulness-based and pharmacologic/nonpharmacologic pain-relieving approaches that rely on opioid signaling may effectively treating pain.

Here’s how the NIH describes the study:

Researchers recorded pain reports in 78 healthy adults during meditation or a non-meditation control in response to painful heat stimuli and intravenous administration of the opioid antagonist naloxone (a drug that blocks the transmission of opioid activity) or placebo saline. Participants were randomized to one of four treatment groups: 1) meditation plus naloxone; 2) control plus naloxone; 3) meditation plus saline; or 4) control plus saline.

People in the control groups were instructed to “close your eyes and relax until the end of the experiment.” The researchers found that participants who meditated during saline administration had significantly lower pain intensity and unpleasantness ratings compared to those who did not meditate while receiving saline. Importantly, data from the meditation plus naloxone group showed that naloxone did not block meditation’s pain-relieving effects. No significant differences in reductions of pain intensity or pain unpleasantness were seen between the meditation plus naloxone and the meditation plus saline groups. Participants who meditated during naloxone administration also had significantly greater reductions in pain intensity and unpleasantness than the control groups.

AHC Media offers Integrative Medicine Alert, a monthly publication about healing-oriented approachs to health and wellness that address mind, body, and spirit. Be sure to check back soon with Integrative Medicine Alert for more insight on this study.

Meanwhile, AHC has written extensively on the deadly toll of opioid addiction. In the February issue of ED Management, author Dorothy Brooks examined what were then the CDC’s draft recommendations on opioid abuse, which weren't without controversy, as well as alternative recommendations made by others. The March issue of Medical Ethics Advisor weighs the ethical boundaries of opioid “pain agreements” while the March issue of Primary Care Reports reviews safe strategies for prescribing opioids. AHC also offers an on-demand webinar detailing safe opioid prescription guidelines.