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With so many ways that people can get hurt, researchers are always on the lookout for
non-addictive ways to treat severe or chronic pain.
And in 2006, they found a compound that may work even better than morphine called opiorphin.
It was hiding right under our noses... in human spit.
In 2003, scientists found a similar compound in rat saliva, which is released in response
to stressful situations, like being in pain.
So the team went searching for one in humans too, and they found opiorphin.
To be totally clear, it’s not like this chemical is constantly numbing your mouth
and body.
Opiorphin naturally gets broken down in your digestive tract, so it doesn’t seem to stick
around and have pain-relieving effects.
And even if you’re the kind of person who licks their paper cuts, we’re not sure if
it does anything on your skin, or if there’s enough of it to make you feel better.
Scientists figured out how opiorphin works by isolating it and doing experiments mostly
not in whole living organisms.
And its painkiller abilities are a little roundabout.
Specifically, it binds to enzymes in the body that break down another class of pain-killing
compounds called enkephalins.
Enkephalins are peptides — shorter amino acid chains.
And kind of like endorphins, they bind to opioid receptors in the central nervous system
and keep certain signals from reaching the brain, so you don’t perceive pain.
Basically, they help make you feel good!
Since pain is a sign that something’s wrong, you can’t have enkephalins around all the
time.
So your body also has a group of enzymes called proteases that tidy up.
They break down proteins and peptides, and help make sure the right signals are being
sent and received.
Opiorphin blocks a couple specific proteases that break down enkephalins, so these pain-relieving
chemicals stick around longer.
Researchers think that compounds like opiorphin might exist because they help in times of
danger — they block out pain to let us run away from whatever’s causing it in the first
place.
But to figure out what opiorphin is capable of, scientists ran a few different tests.
In one, they injected a chemical irritant called formalin into rat paws.
.
Not only that, but opiorphin seemed to be almost as effective as a slightly higher dose
of morphine.
The other was a pin-pain test, where the rats had to walk over a pin-covered surface.
Like a human on a bed of nails, the pins were close enough that the rats couldn’t stab
themselves, but were still uncomfortable.
Here, too, the researchers found that opiorphin seemed to work almost as well as morphine
to keep the pain at bay.
As far as we can tell from testing rats, opiorphin is less addictive than opioid painkillers
like morphine.
And scientists think we’re less likely to become tolerant, or need more drug over time
to get the same effects.
Unfortunately, it’s also pretty likely that opiorphin doesn’t just block proteases that
break down enkephalins — which might mean unwanted side effects.
So we still have a lot of questions about what this painkiller is doing in our spit,
and how to turn it into medicine.
But it’s a pretty cool find, and may be useful someday.
But for now, even with a painkiller in your saliva, you can’t lick your own face to
alleviate razor burn.
You could maybe lick your armpits if you shave them, but would you want to?
And if you’ve ever tried to test out shaving cream and a razor in the store, you know that
does not go over well.
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