Sylvanus Toikumo, Rachel Vickers-Smith, Zeal Jinwala, Heng Xu, Divya Saini, Emily E Hartwell, Mirko Pavicic, Kyle A Sullivan, Ke Xu, Daniel A Jacobson, Joel Gelernter, Christopher T Rentsch, Eli Stahl, Martin Cheatle, Hang Zhou, Stephen G Waxman, Amy C Justice, Rachel L Kember, Henry R Kranzler
Chronic pain is a common problem, with more than one-fifth of adult Americans reporting pain daily or on most days. It adversely affects the quality of life and imposes substantial personal and economic costs. Efforts to treat chronic pain using opioids had a central role in precipitating the opioid crisis. Despite an estimated heritability of 25-50%, the genetic architecture of chronic pain is not well-characterized, in part because studies have largely been limited to samples of European ancestry. To help address this knowledge gap, we conducted a cross-ancestry meta-analysis of pain intensity in 598,339 participants in the Million Veteran Program, which identified 126 independent genetic loci, 69 of which are new...
March 1, 2024: Nature Medicine