How the Use of Opioids Can Shut Down Your Body

How the Use of Opioids Can Shut Down Your Body

It seems that now in the news we are seeing a spike in deaths in the U.S. due to opioid overdose. Opioids are drugs that include: heroin, morphine, and fentanyl. They can be used to relieve severe pain and cause intense feelings of pleasure and euphoria. But they are also very dangerous and they can be especially harmful when they interfere with crucial systems in the body. The first and fastest effect is the restriction of normal voluntary and involuntary breathing. Opioids have the ability to slow down the rate an depth of breathing. Here's how opioids do this: In the brain stem there are two regions called the medulla and the pons, they are both responsible or controlling the depth and rate of breathing in the body. They also contain many opioid receptors, basically proteins that are situated on the surface of cells and whose job it is to grab onto opioids to activate a cell and cause a response. When activated, the receptors change the behavior of cells so it can slow down or even in some cases stop breathing all together. Opioids also affect the carotid body, which is a small cluster of cells inside our necks that sense small increases in CO2 and in response, create bigger breaths in order to remove the excess CO2 and bring us back to our baseline. However, people who take opioids might have trouble doing this because opioids can dampen this natural response, which essentially silences the body's CO2 warning system. So basically, the emergency signals the body is usually receiving in this situation are never sent and go undetected. 

Zoe Israel

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