New study reveals the types of painkillers most likely to kill you
Britt Jones
Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock
Scientists have revealed the drugs most likely to kill you, and which ones contain the lowest risk to your health in a landmark study.
Researchers from the University of Manchester in the UK, have identified exactly which painkiller drugs could put patients in harm's way via fatal overdose, and found it was linked to a drug that 8.6 million people reported misusing in the US.
Overall, the scientists looked at the impact of opioids on people's health and found that specific kinds came with a link to something called respiratory depression – which causes death by overdose.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, respiratory depression (hypoventilation) is a condition which is 'when you breathe too slowly or too shallowly, leading to carbon dioxide building up in your blood'.
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From there, it can cause respiratory failure or cardiac arrest.
However, right now, there is a huge epidemic in the US in regard to opioid addiction, with a 2024 study approximating between 2.1 million and 4.8 million suffering from the disorder.
Opioids are incredibly strong painkillers used to treat things like pain after surgery or serious injury and in those who are being treated for cancer.
The group of drugs include things like morphine, codeine and tramadol, as well as fentanyl, which was found to be cause the highest risk of potential death.
analyzed electronic health records from 32,909 UK adults being treated in the north-west of England.
What they took into account were those who had signs their breathing became dangerously low after taking the drugs.
What they found was that those taking fentanyl were three times more likely to suffer breathing problems and 85 per cent more likely to suffer respiratory depression than those prescribed with morphine.
Opioids are used for the treatment of pain and pain management, but fentanyl 'is a potent synthetic opioid drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration' for this reason.
However, it's 'approximately 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin as an analgesic', per the DEA.
Its impact can see a user feel 'happy' and relaxed, but also want to consume more of the drug, per the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
It adds that the side effects associated with fentanyl can range from mild to severe, with reported health problems including 'confusion, drowsiness, nausea, visual disturbances, constipation, muscle stiffness, and many others.'
It explained that 'like other opioids, fentanyl affects the parts of the brain that control breathing', and when a 'person takes a higher fentanyl dose than their body can handle (an overdose), their breathing can slow to a life-threatening level.'
However, while fentanyl on its own is a significant risk, so is mixing drugs.
The study determined that both oxycodone and morphine were also at a higher risk of causing breathing problems than those taking codeine and for anyone taking more than one opioid, they had a 50 per cent higher risk than just morphine users.
Dr Meghna Jani, a senior clinical lecturer at the University of Manchester, and senior author of the study, said: "Opioids remain important medicines for managing severe acute pain. Our findings show that the risks are not the same across all opioid drugs or doses."
“A key strength of our study was our ability to use detailed hospital electronic health records to accurately capture when opioids were actually administered to patients, alongside routinely collected vital signs to identify changes in breathing.
Dr Jani added: “Understanding how different medicines and combinations affect respiratory safety can help clinicians and patients make more informed prescribing decisions together, as well increasing awareness of what dose thresholds require closer monitoring.”