geoffrey modest medical blogs

  A recent study compared mindfulness training and cognitive behavioral therapy in patients who had chronic low back pain and were being treated with opiates, finding improved back pain symptoms with decreased opiate doses in both cohorts at both 6 months and 12 months (see  lbp opioids mindfulness and CBT helps JAMA2025  in dropbox, or doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.3204)   Details : -- 770 patients were enrolled in this community partner-informed, partially masked, multisite, randomized controlled trial with participants from primary and specialty care clinics and community settings who were randomly assigned to mindfulness-based therapy (MBT) or cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) -- participants had never had either MBT or CBT previously, had moderate-to-severe chronic low back pain (CLBP) (score of at least 3 on the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI)), functional limitations (score at least 20 on the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI)), and were treated with opiates ...

Here are 2 pretty convincing articles suggesting that GLP-1 receptor agonists  (GLP-1RAs) might be important medications to treat alcohol use disorder (AUD)     ---------------------------------------------------------   1. a rat study:  alcohol dec with semaglutide rats lancet2023  in dropbox, or doi.org/10.1016/j.ebiom.2023.104642 -- male and female rats were studied, rats that were bred to have a voluntary high and stable alcohol consumption that created pharmacologically relevant blood alcohol concentrations   -- acute and repeated semaglutide administration led to significant reductions in alcohol intake and prevented relapse-like drinking in both male and female rats (relapses being simulated by withdrawing semaglutide after it had led to decreased alcohol consumption, rats then resuming drinking, then reinitiating semaglutide with good effect)       -- there was no decrease in drinking water or total liquid intake (there actu...