Opioids have long been known as natural substances with substantial pharmacological effect. They have been used as effective painkillers. A very prominent example is morphine, which was first isolated and synthesized in the early 19th century.
It is a relief for severely ill patients in the last phases of their lives. However, when opioids are used inappropriately they can cause addiction and even the development of extremely serious undesirable effects, such as respiratory depression. In the USA, opioids were once widely promoted through the media and, as a consequence, were often prescribed to treat what were in fact mild disorders.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were nearly 645,000 cases of mortality due to opioid overdose in the United States between 1999 to 2021. And the opioid crisis has arrived in Germany, too. The main problem is street drugs and the fact that the synthetic opioid heroin, in particular, is cut with other, cheaper opioids, such as fentanyl.
While a dose of 200 milligrams heroin is fatal, just two milligrams of fentanyl can kill. In 2022, more than 1,000 people in Germany died as a result of the consumption of opioids. Governments have introduced measures to contain this epidemic.
However, opioid addiction rates are high. Others suffer from extreme pain that needs to be alleviated. There is thus an urgent need for safe analgesics.
Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) - with financial support .
