New Drug Kills Pain by Boosting Body's Naturally Occurring Marijuana-Like Compound
Medical Marijuana If only all medicines had such fun names. Wikimedia Commons In a boon for pain research, American and Italian scientists say they have found a new drug that allows a marijuana-like substance to control pain at a specific site in the body. Their study suggests cannabinoid compounds could be used in new pain medications that are non-addictive and non-sedative, unlike opiates. The drug works by blocking an enzyme that degrades a compound called anandamide, whose name comes from the Sanskrit word for "bliss." Anandamide exists naturally in humans and is chemically similar to THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. It was thought to work only in the brain, but with the new drug, URB937, anandamide works in peripheral tissues, too. Led by Daniele Piomelli, director of the Center for Drug Discovery at the University of California-Irvine, teams from the Italian universities of Urbino and Parma gave the URB937 drug to rats...