Our nation in the grips of a deadly opioid obsession, in recent numbers from the CDC revealing just how deadly it can be. In 2015 alone, more than 33,000 people died from opioid overdoses. But how do we stop this growing epidemic, which is clearly a problem? Well, a new DNA test explores the genetics of addiction, and it actually might hold the key to figure out if you and your family members have problems. Here to tell us more about it is Dr. Hooman Melamed. He is a spinal surgeon with Marina Del Rey Hospital, which is in California. Thank you so much for being with us.
Sure, absolutely.
So tell us about this DNA test.
DNA test is a proof opioid test, which assesses a patient’s risk of developing an addiction, abuse to narcotic medications, and there is cross reactivity with psychiatric disorders such as anxiety, depression, schizophrenia. And there’s a test in genetic area in the brain called brain reward cascade system, which helps to show if the patients can become addicted or have substance abuse issues.
How do you administer the test?
It’s very easy, just a swab in your mouth. Just put a little swab in your mouth, and then the test goes off, and it goes about 2-3 weeks later you get the results back.
And you can tell based on the results whether or not someone is going to be proned to an addiction, and you test your patients for narcotics.
Absolutely. The proof opioid test shows basically that what medication works for them. Wouldn’t you want to know if you have, like, surgery or pain, like, rather than trying different medication if this works or doesn’t? You directly go to the medication that actually works for you, and the optimum dose, and minimizing side effects.
So let’s say you have a patient and you do the swab, and you determine that they’re predisposed to addiction problems. Do you give them medications? Because if they are prone to addiction, wouldn’t they have a higher chance of being addicted?
Absolutely, so exactly what you just talked about. In the beginning, like, this is an epidemic problem. We’ve spent hundreds of million of dollars, and the number one culprit for giving out the opiates is the doctors. So knowing that knowledge that I have, I’m very careful at how much narcotic, and I tell the patients, you know, I’m not here, the narcotics are not here for a man for the pain, it’s just for very, very short term. And I don’t try to give it more than that, and knowing that results yet, I’m very careful, become very basically frugal in terms of how much I prescribe medications.
So you operate on people’s backs, you’re a spine doctor, but before you administer surgery you’re going to do that swab to determine whether or not your patients going to be addicted to their pain medicines.
Absolutely, and receive what the side effects are, as far as how much, what’s the optimum dosing is, and not to give. It has been amazing. Some of the patients, when you’re given the test, are like, oh my god, I knew, I know why this never worked. I always knew this medication doesn’t work for me.
So why don’t all doctors use this? It seems simple, because then you could prevent people from getting addicted.
Well, there’s multiple reasons for that. I don’t think we get the education in medical school. I never learn about it in medical school or residency. We just learned this is the pain, this is the protocol, it was a protocol to do. You’re not educated on that. So somehow I was like, always like to think outside the box, and I somehow, I came across this, the proof genetic test. And the other problem, I hate to say this, but doctors sometimes want a patient to be addicted, because the patient keeps coming back, so they can keep writing the medication. That’s another huge problem that hasn’t been looked into.
All right, well, thank you so much for being here.
Thank you very much.
