The role of endogenous opioids in mindfulness and sham mindfulness-meditation for the direct alleviation of evoked chronic low back pain: a randomized clinical trial.

Summary

Mindfulness meditation directly reduces evoked chronic low back pain through non-opioidergic processes, not by activating the body's opioid system. In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial with a drug crossover design, 59 individuals with chronic low back pain completed a four-session mindfulness or sham mindfulness-meditation intervention. During intravenous naloxone (an opioid blocker) or saline infusion, both mindfulness and sham mindfulness groups showed significant pain reductions during meditation compared to rest. However, the mindfulness group reported significantly lower pain than the sham group, and its effects were more pronounced, suggesting unique benefits from non-reactive appraisal processes. Pain severity and interference scores also decreased.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Chronic low back pain (cLBP) is the most prevalent chronic pain condition. There are no treatments that haven been found to directly assuage evoked cLBP. To this extent, mindfulness-meditation is a promising pain therapy. Yet, it is unclear if meditation can be utilized to directly attenuate evoked chronic pain through endogenous opioids. A double-blind, randomized, and placebo-controlled clinical trial with a drug crossover design examined if mindfulness-meditation, as compared to sham mindfulness-meditation, attenuated straight leg-raise test evoked chronic pain during intravenous (0.15 mg/kg bolus + 0.15 mg/kg/hour maintenance) naloxone (opioid antagonist) and placebo-saline infusion. Fifty-nine individuals with cLBP (mean age = 46 years; 30 females) completed all study procedures. After the pre-intervention pain testing session, patients were randomized to a four-session (20-min/session) mindfulness (n = 30) or sham mindfulness-meditation (n = 29) intervention. After the interventions, mindfulness and sham mindfulness-meditation were associated with significant reductions in back pain during saline and naloxone infusion when compared to rest (non-meditation) in response to the cLBP-evoking straight leg-raise test. These results indicate that meditation directly reduces evoked chronic pain through non-opioidergic processes. Importantly, after the interventions, the mindfulness group reported significantly lower straight leg-raise induced pain than the sham mindfulness-meditation group during rest (non-meditation) and meditation. Mindfulness and sham mindfulness-meditation training was also associated with significantly lower Brief Pain Inventory severity and interference scores. The pain-relieving effects of mindfulness meditation were more pronounced than a robust sham-mindfulness meditation intervention, suggesting that non-reactive appraisal processes may be uniquely associated with improvements in chronic low-back pain.Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT04034004.