United States: A new study shows that taking acetaminophen (also called paracetamol), a common painkiller, for a long time can increase the risk of serious health problems in older people. This may lead doctors to reconsider using it as the first treatment for long-term conditions.
As reported by the new atlas, if they have not administered, it in their lives at some point they would recognize acetaminophen/paracetamol. Paracetamol commonly known as Tylenol or Panadol is the ordinary nonspecific first-tier medicine for pain and fever. Hailed as safe, acetaminophen has been in clinical use for more than 140 years.
However, of course, there are always certain conditions. For instance, consuming more than the recommended daily dose of the painkiller, acetaminophen may cause the complete failure of the liver.
And now, a new study reveals that the use of repeated doses in people aged between 65 and over results in other health risks with research led by the University of Nottingham.
‘Because of its relatively safe profile, paracetamol has been included in many treatment guidelines for older adults at higher risk of developing adverse drug reactions,’ explained Professor Weiya Zhang from NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at the University’s School of Medicine and the study’s principal investigator.
Patients in the UK who are over the age of 65 years receive free prescription from their GP at no fee. This was possible and helped the researchers to study the safety of acetaminophen among that generation. They did it using data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) Gold study and comparing major adverse event rates in use and non-use of acetaminophen.
Candidates had to be 65 years or older at baseline and have been listed with a general practitioner in the UK for at least one year at some time between 1998 and 2018. Thus, 180, 483 participants who used acetaminophen and 402,478 participants who never used acetaminophen were engaged in this study.
The amount of acetaminophen exposure was determined by participants who had received two or more acetaminophen prescriptions in the past six months without other drugs such as codeine. This definition excluded chance users who used the drug for things such as headaches.