Morphine, oxycodone, fentanyl, tramadol, codeine, opium… Each year, nearly 18% of French people are prescribed one of these opioid analgesics, according to the latest data from the French Observatory for Analgesic Drugs.
It must be said that these molecules are particularly effective against pain.
However, the other side of the coin is that they have sometimes very serious side effects, such as respiratory depression, which can lead to death.
They are also particularly addictive drugs.
Adverse effects that have been responsible for thousands of deaths in the United States in recent years.
To discover
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What is the opioid crisis, which kills 130 Americans every day?
Why can't we reduce or even eliminate these harmful effects?
“The difficulty lies in the fact that the analgesic effects and the adverse effects of morphine and other opioid drugs target the same“ mu ”receptor in the brain,”
explains Prof. Alain Eschalier, president of the Analgesia institute.
To develop better drugs
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