This study aims to utilize pain-specific abnormal biomarkers to evaluate how daily supplementation with Root.Health, a plant-based dietary supplement, affects FPI urine screening scores in chronic opioid-consuming pain patients. Analyzing the effect of Root.Health supplementation on pain-specific biomarkers through changes in FPI scores may expand our understanding of the degree to which these biomarkers may correlate to the underlying biologic processes involved in chronic pain creation. While widespread identification of such abnormalities may prove to have profound impacts on the future prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of pain, this investigation only intends to evaluate the effect of Root.Health on patient's urine levels of abnormal biomarkers. A previous validation study of the urine assay used in FPI screening demonstrated that an estimated 86% of patients reporting pain have at least one abnormal pain-related biomarker. The plant-based ingredients of the Root.Health supplement have been previously studied in the context of biochemical abnormalities that drive pain development, and this study is designed to characterize the mechanism by which these ingredients act to maintain biochemical processes which normally attenuate pain. As such, this study is not intended to evaluate Root.Health's ability to diagnose, cure, mitigate, treat, or prevent any disease.
The compounds included Root.Health supplements were carefully selected based on methodological review of current scientific evidence describing their roles in supporting innate physiological processes that attenuate biochemical abnormalities driving pain development. The investigators hypothesize that the plant-based compounds included in Root.Health will reduce the levels of abnormal pain biomarkers in chronic pain patients, as measured by a change in FPI score from baseline, based on literature which suggests that these compounds may attenuate biochemical abnormalities involved in causative pain mechanisms by supporting specific markers of cellular health (i.e normal activity of inflammatory pathways, oxidative stress capacity, production of pain-related neurotransmitters, and micronutrient status).
This is an open-label, prospective, observational pilot study. The investigators will be using a single group assignment intervention model with one group of 20 subjects. The primary outcome of this study is to evaluate Foundational Pain Index scores following a 3-month daily supplementation course with Root.Health in an opiate-using chronic pain patient population at 1-month and 3-months. The secondary objective of this study is to evaluate if daily supplementation with Root.Health for a 3-month study period affects Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) Short Form and Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) scores and/or opiate consumption in this patient population. The total study duration for each eligible participant is 4 months, which will include 5 study points: initial in-person study visit, 1-week in-person follow up visit (where study participants will receive supplements), and 3 virtual follow up visits at 1-month, 2-months and 3-months.
