Potlike Substance in Body Snuffs Pain, Study Finds

A substance in the body that mimics marijuana can quench pain when it acts outside the brain, suggesting a new class of painkillers, a study suggests.

Anandamide is produced in the body, and it pushes the same chemical buttons in the brain that marijuana does to produce the drug’s effects. The new work shows that anandamide, and a chemical cousin called PEA, can suppress pain by pushing other chemical buttons in tissues outside the brain.

Drugs that push these buttons might suppress pain without causing the side effects of drugs that act in the brain and spinal cord, like morphine, researchers said. The work is reported in the July 16 issue of the journal Nature by Daniele Piomelli of UC Irvine and others.

It’s not yet clear what kind of pain such drugs might target, Piomelli said in an interview.

The work shows that mammals have a way to reduce pain at its very origin, he said. The study found that anandamide and PEA are naturally present in rat-paw skin.

Each suppresses pain by binding to structures called receptors on the surface of cells, with each substance binding to a particular kind of receptor, the researchers found. A drug that simultaneously binds to both kinds of receptor might be a useful painkiller, the researchers said.