Background: Opium addiction is a major issue amongst burn-patients in Iran. A few studies have addressed interactions between burn and addiction.Objectives: The aim of the present study was to compare mortality and morbidity between addicted and non-addicted patients with burn injuries.Patients and Methods: This research was a prospective paired matched-cohort study that was conducted from October 2012 to July 2013 at the Burn Unit of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. Onehundred and fifty-two burn patients (64% of 237) were matched in pairs based on age, gender, total body surface area and burn thickness. Mortality and morbidity was compared between the two groups using the McNemar test, the conditional logistic regression model and the Kaplan-Meier method.Results: Fourteen (9.2%) patients died at the Burn unit. McNemartest found statistically significant differences in mortality between the two groups. Survival analysis using the Kaplan-Meier method revealed that the estimated mean survival time was 59.02 (CI 95%: 41.83 - 76.21) for non-addicted patients and 118.78 (CI 95%: 106.52 - 131.04) for addicted patients. The odds ratio for mortality was 0.524 (CI 95%: 0.167 - 1.64) times greater for addicted patients compared with non-addicted patients.Conclusions: Addiction in burn patients could be considered as a factor against mortality that deserves further studies. Besides, addicted patients didn‘t show significantly higher morbidity than non-addicted patients.

Objectives: There is some controversy regarding the effect of opium addiction on the coronary artery disease (CAD). The aim of this study was to determine the association between chronic opium consumption and CAD.Methods: This study had a case-control design. The patients recruited to the study were selected from angiography files in Department of Cardiology in Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran. The comparison was done between CAD patients and normal subjects. Opium addiction was diagnosed by patient self-report and confirmed with interview based on DSM-IV criteria. Odds ratio with 95% confidence interval were estimated by unconditional logistic regression. Results: The risk factor of CAD was the same in the two study groups. The significant difference in opium consumption was demonstrated between CAD patients and normal coronary artery subjects (OR=3.8, 95%CI=1.5-9.5). Because of the strong association between cigarette smoking and opium addiction, analysis was done in smoker and non-smoker groups separately. Logistic regression showed opium addiction was the independent risk factor for CAD in non-smokers after adjusting to other CAD risk factors (OR=38, 95%CI=2.7-531.7), but in cigarette smokers opium was not a significant risk factor (OR=13.2, 95%CI=0.85-206.5).Conclusions: We confirmed that the opium was an independent risk factor for CAD. Health managers and policy makers should try to aware general population and prepare many preventive programs against substance abuse.

Background: Drug abuse is one of the most important public health problems worldwide as in Iran. The aim of present study was to determine whether opium addiction can affect bone mineral density or not.Methods: Fifty opium addicted and 50 non-addicted volunteer men aged between 25-45 were enrolled. The subjects with positive history of other osteoporosis risk factors were excluded. The vertebral bone density and potential confounders (age, cigarette smoking and body mass index) were measured in all subjects.Results: Twenty six percent of non-addicted vs.56% of addicted subjects had vertebral osteopenia. According to adjusted ORs, addiction to opium (OR: 3.08, CI95% 1.20-7.92) and age (OR: 1.11 CI95% 1.03-1.20) were significantly related to vertebral bone loss.Conclusion: Opium addicted patients were more susceptible to bone loss than non-addicted individuals. So, early screening and conducting prevention programs should be taken into consideration for this high risk group.

There is a misconception among our people that opioids may prevent or have ameliorating effects in the occurrence of cardiovascular diseases. In this study we evaluated 556 consecutive male patients hospitalized due to acute myocardial infarction (MI) in city of Yazd, from May 2000 to October 2001 and compared the characteristics of opium addicts to non opium users. Prevalence of opium addiction in MI patients was 19% in comparison with 2-2.8% in general population. There were not any differences in prevalence of traditional risk factors between opium users and non-users. Overall, in-hospital mortality was 18.6 percent among opium users and 6.2 percent among non-opium users (unadjusted odd ratio, 1.3; 95% confidence interval, 0.7 to 2.7, P = 0.2). After adjustment for the differences in the baseline features (age and other risk factors), odds ratio increased to 2.2 (95 percent confidence interval, 0.9 to 5.1). It seems that opium addiction may work as a risk factor in cardiovascular disease.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has estimated that there are 16 million opioid users globally (1). Since December 2019, when coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) emerged fromWuhancity and rapidly spread throughout China (2), this disease hasmanypsychiatric aspects (3), and some false beliefs and rumors have been spread in social media and the community regarding the protective effect of opium consumption against COVID-19 (4). ...