Faculty Bibliography

UNLABELLED:Cannabinoids show promise as therapeutic agents, particularly as analgesics, but their development and clinical use has been complicated by recognition of their botanical source, cannabis, as a substance of misuse. Although research into endogenous cannabinoid systems and potential cannabinoid pharmaceuticals is slowly increasing, there has been intense societal interest in making herbal (plant) cannabis available for medicinal use; 23 U.S. States and all Canadian provinces currently permit use in some clinical contexts. Whether or not individual professionals support the clinical use of herbal cannabis, all clinicians will encounter patients who elect to use it and therefore need to be prepared to advise them on cannabis-related clinical issues despite limited evidence to guide care. Expanded research on cannabis is needed to better determine the individual and public health effects of increasing use of herbal cannabis and to advance understanding of the pharmaceutical potential of cannabinoids as medications. This article reviews clinical, research, and policy issues related to herbal cannabis to support clinicians in thoughtfully advising and caring for patients who use cannabis, and it examines obstacles and opportunities to expand research on the health effects of herbal cannabis and cannabinoids. PERSPECTIVE:Herbal cannabis is increasingly available for clinical use in the United States despite continuing controversies over its efficacy and safety. This article explores important considerations in the use of plant Cannabis to better prepare clinicians to care for patients who use it, and identifies needed directions for research.

In this study, we investigated the impact of scientific publications of the Italian SIMPAR (Study In Multidisciplinary PAin Research) group by using altmetrics, defined as nontraditional metrics constituting an alternative to more traditional citation-impact metrics, such as impact factor and H-index. By correlating traditional and alternative metrics, we attempted to verify whether publications by the SIMPAR group collectively had more impact than those performed by its individual members, either in solo publications or in publications coauthored by non-SIMPAR group investigators (which for the purpose of this study we will refer to as "individual publications"). For all the 12 members of the group analyzed (pain therapists, biologists, and pharmacologists), we created Open Researcher and Contributor ID and Impact Story accounts, and synchronized these data. Manually, we calculated the level metrics for each article by dividing the data obtained from the research community by those obtained from the public community. We analyzed 759 articles, 18 of which were published by the SIMPAR group. Altmetrics demonstrated that SIMPAR group publications were more likely to be saved (77.8% vs 45.9%), discussed (61.1% vs 1.1%, P<0.0001), and publicly viewed (11.1% vs 1.3%, P=0.05) than individual publications. These results support the importance of multidisciplinary research groups in the impact of scientific literature; the interaction and synergy among the research participants allowed the obtainment of high impact-literature in the field of personalized pain medicine. Finally, our findings demonstrate the potential of altmetrics in estimating the value of the research products of a group.

Recently, attention to the lifestyle of patients has been rapidly increasing in the field of pain therapy, particularly with regard to the role of nutrition in pain development and its management. In this review, we summarize the latest findings on the role of nutrition and nutraceuticals, microbiome, obesity, soy, omega-3 fatty acids, and curcumin supplementation as key elements in modulating the efficacy of analgesic treatments, including opioids. These main topics were addressed during the first edition of the Study In Multidisciplinary Pain Research workshop: "FYD (Feed Your Destiny): Fighting Pain", held on April 7, 2016, in Rome, Italy, which was sponsored by a grant from the Italian Ministry of Instruction on "Nutraceuticals and Innovative Pharmacology". The take-home message of this workshop was the recognition that patients with chronic pain should undergo nutritional assessment and counseling, which should be initiated at the onset of treatment. Some foods and supplements used in personalized treatment will likely improve clinical outcomes of analgesic therapy and result in considerable improvement of patient compliance and quality of life. From our current perspective, the potential benefit of including nutrition in personalizing pain medicine is formidable and highly promising.