New class of painkiller found in a mud sample | Hacker News Reader

New class of painkiller found in a mud sample

imb.uq.edu.au

78 pointsjedroos40 comments

As someone in constant severe pain, I hope that this new drug is as potent and harmless as they hypothesize.

I often read about new and wondrous painkillers, and never hear about them again after that initial flurry of journalistic over excitement. They disappear in much the same way as the various cures for cancer that have been hyped over the years.

I desperately hope that one of these wonder-painkillers will make it to market within my lifetime.

As someone overly familiar with cancer, my hopes could be higher, this will inevitably turn out to be only applicable in a small number of cases a decade and a half from now

It mentions not having the typical side effects of opiates like addiction, respiratory depression, tolerance, etc.

I'm curious, though, if it induces euphoria like opiates do.

They actually didn’t even say that. It’s pure speculation, as is common in science journalism. It makes the article sound more exciting to the reader.

The direct quote from the main paper author seems to say that indirectly: "if this proves successful and leads to a new medication, it will significantly reduce the risk of death by overdose from opioid medications such as codeine.”

That’s because it theoretically has less side effects of the repository system — the fatal part of an opioid overdose.

Right, they simply say "it has the opposite bias" for additional reactions, but we have no idea what "opposite bias" will result in. The side effects could be seizure and anaphylaxis instead of respiratory depression and addiction.

It's a pretty huge "if" and completely speculative theory.

This is not even journalism; it's just a press release from the university.

This was also my curiosity. These sorts of medications are abused for their pain relief properties, but also the whole euphoria thing is a pretty big equation too.

So, I'm not an expert, and haven't read the paper linked to in the article yet, but I think this is an opioid that doesn't recruit beta-arrestin?

If so, that's not really a new class of drug - it's still an opioid, albeit one with less side effects. It will still induce euphoria and have abuse potential; perhaps even more abuse potential, as the risk of dying from respiratory depression is much lower.

It's also not the first opioid having this property - mitragynine and 7-OH-mitragynine the main opioid alkaloids in kratom) also don't recruit beta-arrestin.

> It will still induce euphoria and have abuse potential; perhaps even more abuse potential, as the risk of dying from respiratory depression is much lower.

Are you defining "abuse" here as "having a good time while on drug"? If not, then how would a drug with lower risks of overdose (and possibly addiction, as the article hypothesizes) be more prone to abuse?

> Are you defining "abuse" here as "having a good time while on drug"?

There's no reason to make this a moralizing statement. You can define abuse as "a good chunk of people will find that their lives are unmanageable after getting access to this substance"

> Are you defining "abuse" here as "having a good time while on drug"?

Yes, I wouldn't necessarily personally consider that "abuse", more "use"; but much of western society does (unless it's one of the few "acceptable" drugs: alcohol, nicotine, caffeine).

I would encourage you to not give in to this fallacious usage of word, even if many people use it that way. This view has arguably created more harm than the drugs themselves.

Here is the definition from Wikipedia [0], which I think is much more appropriate (and I'm guessing you'd agree with it): "Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, is use of a drug in amounts or by methods which are harmful to the individual or others."

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance_abuse

Thanks, I do agree with this.

Kratom is not an opioid.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/kratom-fear-worthy-folia...

It binds to opioid receptors - it is an opioid.

I realise it's convenient for some kratom supporters to claim otherwise, but I am also a kratom supporter and believe this kind of obvious misinformation harms, rather than furthers the cause.

I can't edit my post, but to be clear, kratom itself obviously isn't an opioid, but it contains opioid alkaloids.

Yep. But the same is more or less true of many pharmaceutical opioid preparations — they may contain paracetamol, binder, or filler in addition to the active opioid compound (e.g., Vicodin). I think it's fair to call the broad category "opioids."

Absolutely, my updated comment was merely a guard against expected pedantry :)

Totally reasonable! It seems I was that kind of pedant anyway. I'm sorry. :-)

I was mistaken and had opioid lumped in with opiate.

How isn't it?

> Opioids are substances that act on opioid receptors[1]

From your link[2]:

> The two main chemicals, mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine, have strong activity at the main opioid receptor, the “mu” receptor, which is the same one stimulated by heroin and oxycodone.

It's not an opiate, which is just the subset of opioids derived from the opium poppy. But neither are many pharmaceutical opioids.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opioid

[2]: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/kratom-fear-worthy-folia...

Alkaloids in kratom bind to mu-opioid receptors, build tolerance, and cessation after chronic use will induce withdrawals.

when I search for "Bilorphin" or "bilaids" all I can find are a bunch of "news" articles that point back to this site.

They coined the term ("which we named the bilaids"), and the paper is pretty recent (https://www.pnas.org/content/116/44/22353), so that seems expected.

American high school football coaches who told you to “rub some dirt on it” when you were hurt finally vindicated by science.

Well... at my old high school the coaches would slip opioids into players bags before games so they could play through pain.

BBC did a documentary on my home town, nearly 8% of my graduating class have died from over doses https://youtu.be/j7ynJ5S9c58

Wow! I'd not heard of that BBC documentary. That's just a stunning kind of crazy there!

Are the coaches in prison?

I wish.

Tacrolimus, one of the main transplant anti-rejection drugs was discovered in soil samples also.

This was the reason I ate mud when I was a kid. I was just a young junkie. And I was invincible.

There’s a reason why toddlers have an insatiable desire to put everything in their mouths for about a year. Do you think nature would evolve that trait if it wasn’t beneficial?

> Do you think nature would evolve that trait if it wasn’t beneficial?

Yes? I mean that happens all the time. Just because a trait isn't useful doesn't mean it will disappear. Sometimes it will stay even if it's harmful as long as it doesn't kill the individual before they reproduce.

A harmful trait that appears in adolescence would disappear because it would kill you before reproductive age.

Only if it's harmful enough to kill you. There's plenty of negative traits in nature that only exist because they weren't bad enough to stop reproduction.

Indeed, its part of how we grow our gut biome, and train our immune system what will and won't kill us. There have been several studies that point out that over sterile environments for babies has a direct correlation with allergies in later life.

The saying “happy as a pig in mud” might have a root cause.

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