Painkillers for Teen Athletes Won't Spur Addiction

Painkillers for Teen Athletes Won't Spur Addiction

Sports may actually provide protective effect against opioid abuse

WebMD News from HealthDay

By James Bernstein

HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, July 25, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- Teenage athletes are less likely to abuse prescription painkillers than kids who don't play sports or exercise, a new study finds.

The study results run counter to some research in recent years detailing concerns about injured teen athletes abusing opioid painkillers prescribed by doctors and then moving on to use heroin.

Dr. Wilson Compton, deputy director of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, said he was "surprised" by the findings. He said, "A key risk (for teenage athletes) is a desire to please and for acceptance. But this study shows overall rates (of use) are declining."

For the study, University of Michigan researchers examined data from nearly 192,000 students in 8th and 10th grade who participated in a federally funded study between 1997 and 2014. Over these years, doctors wrote many more opioid painkiller prescriptions for children and teens, and nonmedical use of opioids increased sharply as well.

At roughly the same time, overdose deaths involving opioids such as Vicodin, OxyContin, Percocet and heroin nearly quadrupled in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

However, the study results suggest that daily participation in sports and exercise may actually serve as a protective factor with respect to painkiller and heroin abuse, said report co-author Philip Veliz. He is with the university's Institute for Social Research.

Even kids who participated in sports just once a week had lower odds of reporting any painkiller or heroin abuse, the study found.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that prescribing opioids to teens after a sports injury may lead some of them to become heroin addicts, Veliz explained. It's said these kids become addicted to their painkillers and eventually resort to heroin, which is also an opioid, because it's cheaper and easier to obtain.

While the narratives are compelling, Veliz said, no large-scale studies have assessed whether abuse of recommended painkillers is actually leading to an "epidemic" of heroin use among teens who frequently engage in sports and exercise.

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