(CNN) Since 1999, significant increases in US suicide rates have paralleled increases in drug overdoses from opioids. Experts have wondered how much the two might be intertwined, estimating that the percent of suicides among opioid overdose deaths to be as high as 20% to 30%. But a new analysis of numbers finds that the link between opioids and suicide might be much smaller than initially believed. The percent of opioid-related suicides actually fell in recent years, dropping from 9% in 2000 to 4% in 2017, according to a research letter published Tuesday in the medical journal JAMA"It gives you a very different picture of the role of opioids in the suicide epidemic," said Dr. Mark Olfson , lead author of the analysis and a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center. The conversation around "deaths of despair" -- deaths related to suicide, drug overdose, liver disease and cirrhosis -- has taken on a specific narrative, Olfson said, intertwining the opioid epidemic and suicide.

Source: CNN December 17, 2019 23:03 UTC