Carry the One Radio: The Science Podcast

“All day strong, all day long”, “the painkiller hospitals use most”, “the extra strength pain reliever”. We see pain reducing drugs like Advil and Aleve advertised all the time. But how do these drugs actually work? Can they relieve all types of pain? What about prescription drugs? Why are opioids the best we have, and awful at the same time? How are new medicines evaluated? And is anyone trying to find a way to make all the pain go away?

This is the second episode in our two-part mini-series on pain. We’ll be joined again by the two esteemed experts that helped us learn about this invisible disease in the first episode: Dr. Allan Basbaum, Professor and Chair of the Department of Anatomy at UCSF, and Dr. Ishmail Abdus-Saboor, Assistant Professor of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania.

In this episode, they will describe the current types of treatments available for various pain conditions, and also highlight exciting new treatments for painful maladies that may be available soon. They explain how optimism from the placebo effect can act as a painkiller, and how this phenomenon complicates the development of new drugs. In addition, we’ll talk about some amazing experiments going on in their labs right now; our experts are trying to identify and understand parts of the pain system that have previously alluded researchers. They explain how their research results could inform development of more precise pain drugs, so you can get that all day long relief, without the nasty side effects.

This episode was written and produced by Nancy Cai, Cindy Liu, Ryan Morrie, and Marilyn Steyert. Music in this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions. Episode art by Ryan Morrie.