About one in three people suffer from chronic pain/ShutterStock
Chronic pain is a difficult and common problem: about one out of three people suffers from chronic pain, and about a quarter of those who suffer from chronic pain suffer from moderate to severe pain that limits their activity and impairs their quality of life.
The problem is that treatments that are effective and safe for the treatment of chronic pain are currently limited.
In addition, there is a high incidence of addictions and severe side effects to the point of death for these treatments, so there is a need to find better and safer treatments.
Another problem with these treatments is that they do not solve the problem of chronic inflammation that often accompanies the chronic pain.
Fish oil is a well-known source of the omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA, which are promising substances for the treatment of chronic pain.
The EPA and DHA can be transformed in the body into active anti-inflammatory substances known as SPMs for short.
The SPMs have demonstrated an anti-pain effect in several research models examining inflammatory pain and neuropathic pain.
Beyond their direct anti-pain effect, they also change the inflammatory process so that they encourage recovery from injury, and can prevent the transition from acute pain to chronic pain.
The SPMs can be derived from fish oil and can be taken as a supplement.
Fish Sauce/ShutterStock
In October 2020, a study was published in the Journal of Translational Medicine that examined the effects of a supplement of SPMs.
In the study, 44 adults were examined with pain that was rated as moderate and more severe, and that lasted at least 3 months.
The indicators tested among the subjects were quality of life indicators, and indicators of chronic pain.
For this purpose, the subjects filled out questionnaires at the beginning of the study and after two and four weeks.
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The results of the study
After 4 weeks of treatment with the supplement, a statistically significant improvement was observed both in the quality of life indicators of the patients, both in all indicators of pain intensity, and its interference with life, and in indicators of anxiety and depression.
Since the treatment improved not only the pain indices, but also the mental state of the subjects, and their physical and social functioning, the researchers indicate that the SPMs treatment has the potential to treat not only the pain but also its mental and functional consequences.
The authors note that if the results of the trial that demonstrated a reduction in depression and anxiety in the patients are repeated in additional trials, this will have far-reaching consequences in the treatment of the population suffering from chronic pain, who also tend to suffer from depression at the same time.
What is the advantage of the SPMs over regular fish oil?
The SPMs are the active substance that our body produces following consumption of the fish oil.
In healthy people, administration of a high dose of fish oil resulted in an increase in the level of SPMs.
In contrast, in people with a variety of diseases such as obesity, arthritis, vascular diseases, and a post-surgery condition, there was a blockage in the production of SPMs even when they gave a high dose of fish oil.
This suggests that people suffering from a variety of diseases will probably need to administer SPMs instead of fish oil in order to achieve good levels of it in the body.
What do the findings of this study mean?
The burden of those suffering from chronic pain on the health system is extremely great, and today the existing treatments can at best provide temporary relief, but on the other hand they involve many side effects, the development of resistance to treatment, and a high incidence of addiction.
The treatment with SPMs is a treatment that has the potential not only to be effective, but also does not involve side effects, and the risk of addiction.
This is the first clinical study to examine the oral administration of a preparation of SPMs derived from fish oil in people with chronic pain.
The results of this study indicate that this treatment has the potential to positively impact the lives of millions who suffer from chronic pain.
For this purpose, additional studies are needed that will be double-blind and of a longer duration.
Dr. Dalit Dariman Medina is an expert in family medicine and integrative and functional medicine
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