Stokes A, Berry KM, Collins JM, et al. - In this cross-sectional study, researchers investigated how obesity affects prescription opioid use among adults aged 35 to 79 years using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES; 2003-2016). The analysis revealed elevated odds of prescription opioid use in correlation with body mass indices in the overweight (OR: 1.11), obese I (OR: 1.26), obese II (OR: 1.69), and obese III (OR: 2.33) categories vs normal weight. For chronic opioid use, stronger association between excess weight and opioid use was observed compared with use with a duration of < 90 days. According to findings, obesity contributes to about 14% of prescription opioid use at the population level. Across obesity status, back pain, joint pain, and muscle/nerve pain accounted for the largest disparities in self-reported reasons for prescription opioid use. The researchers thus concluded that the high prevalence of US prescription opioid use may be partially due to the obesity epidemic.