Abstract

OPIOIDS AND OPIOID ANALOGS' IMPACT ON THE ANIMAL AND HUMAN ENDOCRINE SYSTEMS: A REVIEW

Heena Sharma*, Mohak Mali*, Joshi Poonam*, Nehal Jain* and Sanjana Mali*

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Abstract

In the past ten years, there has been an upsurge in opioid misuse, partly as a result of easier availability to prescription opioids. Opioid analgesics are also being prescribed by doctors more frequently to treat persistent non-cancer pain. Hence, understanding the long-term effects of opioid usage and misuse has significant ramifications for completely assessing the therapeutic utility of opioid drugs. Several research have looked at how opioids affect the endocrine system, but to our knowledge, no systematic assessment of the endocrine effects of opioids in both people and animals has been published since 1984. Thus, we looked at the research on how opioids affect the endocrine system. While the bulk of research have focused on the acute effects even though the chronic effects are more physiologically significant, we included both the acute and chronic effects of opioids. Opioids often raise GH and prolactin while decreasing LH, testosterone, estradiol, and oxytocin in both humans and lab animals. Opioids cause a rise in TSH in humans, but a fall in TSH in rodents. There are conflicting studies regarding how opioids affect arginine vasopressin and ACTH in rats and humans. Opioids have stimulatory or inhibiting effects on the release of hormones depending on which receptor sites they choose to act at. Although increasing opioid addiction largely causes hypogonadism, it may also have an impact on other pituitary hormones' release. Lowered libido and erectile dysfunction in males, oligomenorrhea or amenorrhea in women, and bone loss or infertility in both sexes are possible effects of hypogonadism. Depending on the type of opioid and how long it takes to take effect, opioids may cause a person to eat more or less. Furthermore, opioids may affect insulin secretion and promote hyperglycemia by acting on the sympathetic nervous system. This review presents the most recent data on endocrine abnormalities in opiate addicts.

Keywords: Negative results, Endocrinopathy, Supplemental hormones, Hypogonadism, Opioid, Drug rotation.