Non-Natural Painkillers Double Depression Risk

The study, published in the Journal of the International Association for the Study of Pain, followed patients with low-back pain for two years. The patients were taking varying doses of opioid pain killers, rated by their morphine-equivalent dose. The researchers found that higher doses resulted in a doubling of depression incidences.
According to Dr. James Duke, author of The Green Pharmacy, natural herbal alternatives to painkiller drugs that are free of the side effect include meadowsweet, ginger, willow bark, clove, lavender, eucalyptus, red pepper and rosemary.