2-News
2 — Tuesday, February 9, 2016
News
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
THREE THINGS YOU
SHOULD KNOW TODAY
CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES
3
TUESDAY:
Tents and Tables
THURSDAY:
Twitter Talk
FRIDAY:
Photos of the Week
WEDNESDAY:
In Other Ivory Towers
MONDAY:
This Week in History
TENTS AND TABLES
Voter registration, fundraising
CLAIRE ABDO/Daily
Art & Design freshman Keef Edwards models a hat he
sewed in his dorm room shop in Bursley Residence Hall
Monday.
HATS OFF
The
Michigan
Daily
is
introducing a new rotating item,
Tents and Tables, that seeks to
highlight campus activities on
the Diag and near the posting
wall in Angell Hall.
The
College
Democrats
were particularly active with
the upcoming primary election
happening March 8. Because
today was the last day for filing
absentee ballots, club members
took
shifts
throughout
the
day to encourage out-of-state
students to register to vote.
In an interview, LSA junior
Brendan Schroder highlighted
some
of
the
organization’s
upcoming events, which include
a sex education event.
“Every Thursday at 8 we
have an event called KickAss,
which is where we all get
together,” he said. “This week
is a great one because it’s Sex-
Ed KickAss hosted by the Fem
Dems, which is our women’s
rights committee.”
Epsilon Nu Tau — a chapter
of the first entrepreneurship
fraternity in the United States
— also tabled in Angell Hall
to
promote
an
upcoming
event featuring a hypnotist
entertainer.
The
chapter’s
founder,
Business senior Alex Weiss,
helped run the table for part
of the day. He said the event
will be the first hosted by the
fraternity.
“For the first time in our
history, we’re doing a huge
campus-wide event,” he said.
“It’s happening this Friday
in the Michigan Union in the
Rogel Ballroom. We’re bringing
in
a
professional
hypnotist
entertainer. He’s coming from
Canada. He’s an alum of the
University. He’s going to be
putting on a great show for the
students. So we’re selling tickets
to that. It’s going to be a lot of
fun for anyone who attends.”
He said a goal of the
organization is to help inspire
young professionals.
“We help teach young people
— college students — about
entrepreneurial principles, help
them instill an entrepreneurial
spirit,” he said. “We have a lot of
fun doing it. We do socials like a
normal fraternity but we try to
put an entrepreneurial spin on
everything we do.”
The University’s chapter of
Timmy Global Health was also
stationed in Angell Hall, also
advertising upcoming activities
within
their
organization.
According to itswebsite, the
organization aims to increase
access
to
health
care
and
allow students and volunteers
to
address
global
health
challenges.
LSA
freshman
Alaina
Horwood said throughout the
year, the club holds events on
campus including a Glow Run,
a Global Health Symposium
and benefit dinners in order
to raise money to send to Mao,
Dominican Republic.
-LYDIA MURRAY
Study shows prescribing fewer opiods helps reduce overdoses
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The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by
students at the University of Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may
be picked up at the Daily’s office for $2. Subscriptions for fall term, starting in September, via U.S. mail are $110.
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be prepaid. The Michigan Daily is a member of The Associated Press and The Associated Collegiate Press.
‘U’ researchers
explore ways doctors
can assign lower
doses of strong drugs
By ALEXA ST. JOHN
Daily Staff Reporter
Giving patients smaller doses
of prescription opioid painkillers
may prevent overdoses, according
to a recent University study.
Opioids, medications often used
to treat acute pain from surgeries
and cancer, have also increasingly
been used in more recent years for
chronic pain management.
Amy Bohnert, lead author of
the study and assistant professor
of psychiatry, said the Center for
Disease Control and Prevention’s
guidelines for prescription opioid
medication have recently begun
to suggest lower thresholds than
they have in the past. The current
guidelines from the CDC have not
recommended not going above 90
morphine-equivalent milligrams,
also called MEM, and encourage
health care providers to be caution
once a patient begins to receive or
go above 50 MEM, according to
Bohnert.
Additionally, the study found
the average doses of prescription
opioids were much higher for
those who died of an overdose as
compared to those who survived.
“We found that there was a
substantial portion of the people
who died in an opioid overdose,”
Bohnert said. “Assuming that the
fact that they were given such
large quantities influenced the
fact that they overdosed, had
their treatment pattern been
different, had they gotten a lower
dosage, it could have prevented
their death.”
Bohnert
said
the
study
stemmed from the results of
an original study she worked
on five years ago. In that study,
Bohnert said the researchers
looked at the amount of opioids
prescribed to specific patients
and how that related to their
risk of overdosing on those
medications. Bohnert said they
found the greater the amount
a patient was prescribed, the
greater their risk of overdose.
The study used date from the
the Veterans Affairs Ann Arbor
Healthcare System is a national
leader when it comes to having the
type of medical records necessary
for this research, and is why she
decided to complete her research
using their resources. The VA is
also working with the CDC to
have a complete match on cause-
specific mortality data.
“We found that the rate of
unintentional overdose, by any
substance, not just prescription
opioids, is twice as high in VA
patients than it is in the general
population, after you account for
differences in age and sex.”
According to the CDC, the rate
of deaths from drug overdoses,
specifically overdoses involving
opioids, has increased 200 percent
since 2000.
Each day, 46 people die from
an overdose of prescription opioid
or narcotic painkillers in the
United States, the CDC also
reported. In 2012, reportedly
259 million prescriptions for
painkillers were written by
health care providers, equaling
enough for every American
adult to have a bottle of the
medication.
Bohnert said the findings that
there have been more prescription
opioid overdoses recently than in
previous years has resulted from
changes in the way prescription
opioid medication has been used,
as the medication is now applied
to both acute and chronic pain.
In the study, the researchers
changed
the
design
from
the
original
study
Beohnert
conducted five years ago, she
said. Rather than taking an
entire population of patients
who were prescribed opioids,
she said the researchers looked
at patients who were identified
as having died of a prescription
opioid overdose, and were being
prescribed opioids at the time
that they died.
The researchers then created
a
comparison
group,
whose
members were matched to patients
in the original study basedon
criteria such as demographics,
clinical
characteristics
and
treatment characteristics.
“What you’re prescribed as
a patient should be tailored to
what your needs are and the
way in which you are unique, so
hopefully by matching like we
did, we’re making a much more
accurate comparison,” Bohnert
said. “By doing that, we still
found that there were substantial
differences between people in
terms of opioid doses, between
people who died of an overdose
and their matched comparison
group.”
While the average dose for
people who died of an overdose
was almost 100 MEM, in the
comparison group with patients
who did not die of an overdose, the
average dose prescribed was less
than 50 MEM.
Bohnert said there is additional
preview data supporting the idea
that if a patient is prescribed a
higher dose of a prescription opioid
medication, they are more likely
to develop problems with the
substance, which could lead to risky
patterns of behavior associated
with the substance that could lead
to overdose, Bohnert said.
Additionally, because patients
often develop tolerance when
they use opioids, they have to
use more of the medication
to
feel
the
same
effects.
As a patient gets to higher
doses, they can also develop
tolerance to the medication’s
respiratory depression effects,
she noted, a patient has to use
more medication to cause an
overdose, and maybe prescribed
higher doses. As a result of their
growing tolerance, they are
more likely to have received
more medication.
With more on hand, it is much
easier to overdose, Bohnert said.
“The solution to this is going
to require a lot of different
interventions,” Bohnert said. “One
of them is that prescribers are
becoming increasingly cautious
about escalating doses to higher
levels.”
However, Bohnert said that does
not address how to help patients
who are already on high doses and
exhibiting signs showing they are
at risk for adverse outcomes with
the medications.
Bohnert said there have already
been programs to help decrease
these patients’ dosages, but that
there needs to be more research
done to understand how to learn
how
these
programs
might
dangerously impacts the patients’
risk for bad outcomes.
She noted there is some
controversy
about
whether
other medications are better or
should be recommended over
opioids. However, there are risks
to patients takingnonsteroidal
anti-inflammatory
drugs,
common pain-relieving drugs,
as well, she said. Many non-
pharmacological options, such as
physical therapy and cognitive-
behavioral therapy, for pain that
overall have less risks and future
research could be focused, she
added.
commonly used illicit drug,
with a total of 19.8 million
past-month users in the United
States.
“I hope that current and
potential users will consider
the potential long-term effects
of
marijuana
use
on
their
brain health, particularly their
cognitive
functioning
when
deciding to use or not to use,”
Levine said.
In
an
interview,
LSA
sophomore Jason, who smokes
marijuana
regularly
and
requested to be referred to
by only his first name, said
the results of the study do
not impact his perceptions on
marijuana use.
“I really don’t see marijuana
as a serious risk to my health
short-
or
long-term,”
Jason
said. “It may affect my ability to
remember a given list of words,
according to one specific study,
but ultimately I don’t see it as a
barrier to my overall success in
life or health overall.”
There
were
3,385
participants, 84.3 percent of
whom
reported
marijuana
use and 11.6 percent of whom
continued to use marijuana
into middle age. From the
data, Levine concluded that
an average of one out of two
participants remembered one
fewer word from a list of 15
words, for every five years of
past exposure to marijuana.
Levine
said
that
this
statistic is significant, but the
investigation of the effects of
marijuana
consumption
on
cognitive function is ongoing.
“Additional research would
be needed to demonstrate the
clinical effects of decreased
verbal memory in individual day
to day functioning,” Levine said.
It still remains unknown as
to whether occasional or low-
intensity marijuana use earlier
in life has long-term effects, and
whether factors such as age and
duration of exposure have to be
taken into account.
Jason said he did not believe
verbal memory loss was a life-
threatening issue.
“I haven’t looked too far into
the research,” Jason said. “But
verbal memory isn’t threatening
to my life and I assume that I’ll
slow down my consumption of
marijuana over the course of my
life.”
Self-reporting was utilized to
assess the results of the study,
which is sometimes considered
a less reliable method of study,
but Levine said this was not a
primary issue for the research
team.
“Self-report
of
marijuana
use is the gold standard and
customary
approach
for
measuring
an
individual’s
marijuana use,” Levine said.
“I do not feel that it is a major
limitation.”
MARIJUANA
From Page 1
The mayor of Hawaii
declared
a
state
of
emergency
on
the island in response to
increased reports of denuge
fever, CBS News reported.
Denuge is transmitted from
the same mosquitos which
cause the Zika virus.
2
WCED Greece
lecture
WHAT: Yale University
Professor Statis N. Kalvyas
will present information
on the Greek financial
crisis and its impact on the
Eurozone.
WHO: Center for European
Studies
WHEN: Today from 4
p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
WHERE: School of Social
Work, Room 1636
Biology
lecture series
WHAT: MIT professor
JoAnne Stubbe will give
the 7th annual G. Robert
Greenberg lecture in
biological chemistry.
WHO: Department of
Biological Chemistry
WHEN: Today from
12 p.m. to 1 p.m.
WHERE: Medical Science
Unit II, North Lecture Hall
Wheaton College Prof.
Larycia
Hawkins
has
agreed
to
leave
the
institution
after
being
investigated for comments
regarding
Islam
and
Christianity, the New York
Times reported. Hawkins
was tenured at the college.
1
Guest master
class
WHAT: Dimitri Murrath,
an award-winning and
renowned musician,
will offer a free lesson
in perfecting viola-
players’ techniques.
WHO: School of Music,
Theatre & Dance
WHEN: Today at 7 p.m.
WHERE: Earl V. Moore
Building, Glenn E.
Clerking for
the Supremes
WHAT: Three former
Supreme Court law clerks
and faculty members of the
Law school will share their
experiences in the position.
WHO: Department of
Sociology
WHEN: Today from 5:45
p.m. to 8 a.m.
WHERE: LSA Building,
Room 4154
Sexual health
conference
WHAT: Today is the first
day of Sexpertise, a three-
day conference that engages
the campus to explore
sexuality and relationships.
WHO: University Health
Service
WHEN: Today from 6:30
p.m. to 10 p.m.
WHERE: Michigan
Inclusivity
guest speaker
WHAT: Lee Gill,
University of Akron’s chief
diversity officer, will discuss
the University’s diversity.
WHO: Multi-Ethnic
Student Affairs
WHEN: Today from
6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
WHERE: Rackham
Graduate School,
Amphitheater
Concert recital
WHAT: John Sampen,
a distinguished concert
saxophonist, will
perform compositions.
WHO: School of Music,
Theatre & Dance
WHEN: Today at 8 p.m.
WHERE: Stamps
Auditorium
Please report any error in
the Daily to corrections@
michigandaily.com.
React to Film
WHAT: “3 1/2 Minutes,
Ten Bullets,” a film that
depicts the death of a
young, Black male. The
film discusses the racial
climate in the United States
follows.
WHO: Department of
American Culture
WHEN: Today from 8
p.m. to 10 p.m.
WHERE: North Quad,
Room 2435
President Obama will
ask Congress for $1.8
billion to help combat
the Zika virus and
fund research for treatment,
Reuters
reported.
There
are currently no vaccines
or treatments for the virus,
but most infected people
only have mild symptoms.
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