Opioids' classical use besides pain relief is as an anti-diarrhoeal drug.
opioid | Opioid peptide | Opioid |
It is an agonist of the opioid receptors, with evidence suggesting it serves as the endogenous ligand of the μ-opioid receptor, the same receptor to which the chemicals extracted from opium, such as morphine, have their analgesic and addictive effects (indeed, the μ-opioid receptor was named based on its most renowned ligand, morphine).
Casein has been documented to break down in the stomach to produce the peptide casomorphin (above stated that "Human digestion may break down casomorphins into inactive dipeptides by the enzyme dipeptidyl peptidase-4"), an opioid that acts as a histamine releaser.
In 2008, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved methylnaltrexone (Relistor) for opioid-induced constipation in advanced illness patients.
Levacetylmethadol, a synthetic opioid similar in structure to methadone
Methadone was developed in 1937 in Germany by scientists Max Bockmühl and Gustav Ehrhart working for I.G. Farbenindustrie AG at the Farbwerke Hoechst (it is synthesised from 1,1-diphenylbutane-2-sulfonic acid and dimethylamino-2-chloropropane) who were looking for a synthetic opioid that could be created with readily available precursors, to solve Germany's opium shortage problem.
In December 2009, the Canadian Medical Association Journal reported a study finding a fivefold increase in oxycodone-related deaths in Ontario (mostly accidental) between 1991 and 2007 that led to a doubling of all opioid-related Ontario deaths over the same period.
It was developed as a potential analgesic after the discovery that the selective ziconotide is an active analgesic with similar efficacy to strong opioid drugs but comparatively milder side effects.
Supreme court interpretations of the 1914 Harrison Narcotics Tax Act had criminalized opioid dependency as well as the use of any opioid "for the sole purpose of maintenance." Thus began the saddest chapter of America's longest war: the stigmatizing and criminalizing of dependent individuals as well as the physician who prescribe them drugs.