Is Morphine a Guy Drug?

piggy submitted, created time 2 weeks 1 day (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

Men get more relief than women do from painkillers like morphine, according to some studies. New research with rats hints at a possible explanation: Male rats have more receptors for the drug in a brain region involved in pain processing. Although it's not yet clear whether the same is true in humans, researchers say the study underscores the need for more research on the sex-specific effects of pain drugs

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Addicts found to defy easy fixes

Drug eases cravings in stressed alcoholics

sumsung submitted, created time 10 months 3 weeks (www.nature.com)

Researchers have found a drug that reduces responses to stress in some recovering alcoholics, and eases their cravings to have a drink.The results, published online today in Science, were obtained from a small clinical study of 50 recovering alcoholics, all of whom reported high levels of anxiety at the start of the study. The 25 randomly selected to be given the drug reported fewer cravings than those assigned to receive a placebo, and they had a lessened response to stressful situations.

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