THURSDAY, Aug. 11, 2022 (HealthDay News) — The United States has an opioid epidemic, however there’s one brilliant spot within the battle in opposition to it: Prescriptions for these addictive medication have declined for sufferers with personal insurance coverage.

Amid pointers over the previous decade from governments, well being methods and insurers aimed toward lowering opioid prescriptions, earlier research have pointed to a nationwide drop in prescribing charges.

Patients who’re actively receiving most cancers therapies are excluded from these limits.

The new examine included most cancers sufferers in addition to individuals with different persistent ache. It discovered that total prescribing charges nonetheless dropped.

“We discover that from 2012 to 2019 there have been declines in opioid prescribing for people with persistent non-cancer ache and people with most cancers with out corresponding will increase in receipt of non-opioid therapies,” authors Sachini Bandara and Emma McGinty of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, and Dr. Mark Bicket of the University of Michigan, wrote.

The examine was printed Aug. 10 in PLOS ONE .

“These findings spotlight the necessity to higher perceive how declines in prescribing are influencing the administration of ache amongst these affected person populations, significantly because the [U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] is at the moment updating opioid prescribing pointers for persistent ache,” the authors mentioned in a journal information launch.

For the examine, the researchers analyzed insurance coverage claims from 100 personal corporations. They checked out sufferers with most cancers and people with different forms of ache, together with low again ache, neuropathic ache, complications or arthritis.

Between 2012 and 2019, the share of people that had been prescribed an opioid for cancer-related ache dropped from 86% to 78.7%, the examine discovered. Those who acquired opioid prescriptions for different forms of ache dropped from 49.7% to 30.5%.

While charges of non-opioid ache treatment had been regular for individuals with non-cancer ache, researchers discovered they rose for most cancers sufferers from 74.4% to 78.8%.

For those that nonetheless acquired opioids, fewer individuals acquired extraordinarily excessive doses or greater than a one-week provide, the researchers reported.

They mentioned extra examine is required to find out how the revised pointers influenced ache administration in each teams.

More data

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has extra on the opioid epidemic.

SOURCE: PLOS ONE, information launch, Aug. 10, 2022

The post U.S. Opioid Prescriptions Are Declining appeared first on Healthy and Slim Life.

MONDAY, June 6, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Here’s a easy weapon to make use of in opposition to the opioid epidemic: New analysis finds that inserting cut-off dates on prescriptions for extremely addictive narcotic painkillers could cut back the chance of misuse.

In 2019, 1% of opioid prescriptions from U.S. dentists and surgeons had been stuffed greater than 30 days after being issued, lengthy after the acute ache meant to be handled by the prescriptions ought to have subsided, the University of Michigan analysis crew discovered.

Generalized to all surgical and opioid prescriptions within the United States, that proportion would translate into greater than 260,000 opioid prescriptions a 12 months which can be stuffed greater than a month after being written, based on the research printed on-line lately in JAMA Network Open .

“Our findings counsel that some sufferers use opioids from surgeons and dentists for a motive or throughout a time-frame apart from supposed by the prescriber,” stated lead research writer Dr. Kao-Ping Chua. He is a pediatrician and member of the college’s Child Health Evaluation and Research Center and Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.

“These are each types of prescription opioid misuse, which in flip is a robust threat issue for opioid overdose,” Chua defined in a college information launch.

State legal guidelines on expiration intervals for managed substance prescriptions could also be partly in charge, based on the researchers.

In 2019, 18 states permitted prescriptions for Schedule II opioids and different managed substances — these with the best threat of misuse — to be stuffed as much as six months after writing, and one other eight states allowed these medicine to be distributed as much as a 12 months after the prescription.

“It’s perplexing that states would permit managed substance prescriptions to be stuffed so lengthy after they’re written,” Chua stated.

Tighter state legal guidelines may assist forestall or cut back opioid abuse related to delayed filling of prescriptions, he advised.

The researchers pointed to Minnesota, which had a pointy drop in delayed allotting after it launched a regulation in July 2019 that prohibited opioid allotting greater than 30 days after a prescription was written.

Another possibility is for prescribers to incorporate directions on the prescription to not dispense opioids after a sure period of time, the research authors stated.

More info

There’s extra on prescription opioids on the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse.

SOURCE: University of Michigan, information launch, June 1, 2022

The post Setting Time Limits on Opioid Prescriptions Might Reduce Misuse appeared first on Healthy and Slim Life.

WEDNESDAY, April 20, 2022 (HealthDay News) — When folks have authorized entry to marijuana, they’re much less prone to take sure pharmaceuticals, new analysis suggests.

U.S. states the place leisure marijuana is authorized have seen massive drops in the usage of pharmaceuticals for ache, despair, anxiousness, sleep, psychosis and seizures, the researchers discovered.

“These outcomes have necessary implications,” mentioned examine co-author Shyam Raman. He is a doctoral scholar within the School of Public Policy at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

“The reductions in drug utilization that we discover may result in important value financial savings for state Medicaid applications. The outcomes additionally point out a chance to scale back the hurt that may include the harmful unwanted side effects related to some pharmaceuticals,” Raman mentioned in a college information launch.

For the examine, the researchers analyzed U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services information collected from all states from 2011 to 2019, when there was a rise in states that allow private marijuana use.

Currently, leisure marijuana use is authorized in 18 states plus Washington, D.C. Thirty-seven states plus Washington, D.C., have legalized medical marijuana.

Most earlier analysis has centered on how medical marijuana impacts prescription drug use or how authorized leisure pot use impacts opioid demand. This is likely one of the first papers to look at the affect of authorized leisure marijuana on prescription drug use, the examine authors famous.

While there’s a constructive side to their findings, the investigators warned that marijuana use carries dangers, pointing to quite a few research that join it with attainable triggering of tension and psychoses equivalent to schizophrenia.

There’s additionally the prospect that individuals who use marijuana to deal with their well being issues could not see their physician as usually, leading to gaps of their main care, the researchers mentioned.

The examine was printed April 15 within the journal Health Economics .

More data

There’s extra on marijuana on the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse.

SOURCE: Cornell University, information launch, April 18, 2022

The post When Pot Is Legal, Prescriptions for Pain, Depression, Anxiety and Sleep Drop appeared first on Healthy and Slim Life.