PEOPLE who need more and more morphine to get a painkilling effect could soon
get back their sensitivity to the drug, making every dose almost as good as the
first.
Ironically, it鈥檚 thanks to a drug that鈥檚 used in high doses to stop opiates
like heroin and morphine from working at all. But in tiny doses the same drug
makes opiates more effective, according to Khem Jhamandas from Queen鈥檚
University in Kingston, Ontario.
In rats that had built up tolerance to morphine, a small shot of naltrexone
made their sensitivity to the drug rocket to 90 per cent of their original
response (Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, vol
300, p 588).
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