Opioids
The opioid crisis is big news these days, and with good reason. In 2017 alone, there were 70,237 drug overdose deaths, two-thirds of which involved opioids.i Accidental drug overdose is the leading cause of death in the U.S. among people under age 50.ii
The United States is in the grip of an opioid epidemic. It has been declared a public health emergency, and the US government is launching a campaign to raise awareness of this issue. But one thing such campaigns fail to acknowledge is that women bear the greater burden of this epidemic. Due to a variety of factors, they are most at risk of opioid addiction. Read on to discover why, and what alternatives are available to help break this cycle.
Based on an informal poll of 9 staff members, 4 of us admitted to having an old bottle of unfinished opioids on the shelf at home, gathering maybe its 10th year of dust. But how could that be? Aren’t we all knowledgeable health advocates that follow every single up-to-date health recommendation?
Opioid dependency is a bodily adaptation that is likely to disproportionately affect women, because they are more likely to develop opioid dependency in a shorter period of time, compared to men.
Women are more likely than men to experience chronic pain and use prescription opioid pain medications for longer periods and in higher doses.