YOU have a pounding headache after a glass of wine too many?
Or perhaps that old shoulder strain is playing up again.
What do you do? There is a good chance that you will grab those faithful white pills lurking in your medicine cabinet.
Paracetamol, also called acetaminophen, is the workhorse painkiller, mainly because it’s viewed as cheap, safe and effective.
Two hundred million packets are bought over the counter in the UK each year. It’s no surprise, given packs of 16 can cost as little as 49p at some pharmacies.
In England alone last year, GPs made out 14.8 million prescriptions for paracetamol, according to official NHS statistics.
But how safe is the UK’s most popular painkiller, really?
A recent study, published in Arthritis Care and Research, examined the effects of paracetamol in adults aged 65 and over and revealed some concerning links between regular use and serious health issues.
Scientists from Nottingham University analysed six months of health records for over 180,000 people who were repeatedly prescribed the medicine and nearly 400,000 who were not.
They discovered those who popped paracetamol faced a higher risk of a range of complications, including peptic ulcer bleeding, lower gastrointestinal bleeding, heart failure, and chronic kidney disease.
In fact, the risk of peptic ulcer bleeding was 24 per cent higher, and lower gastrointestinal bleeding jumped by 36 per cent.
Meanwhile, people who took painkillers were nine per cent more likely to suffer from heart failure, than those who didn’t.
According to the NHS, paracetamol “rarely causes side effects”, is safe to take regularly “for many years”.
It is the first-choice painkiller for people while pregnant or breastfeeding.
However, it is already known that paracetamol may be dangerous for certain people.
The standard dose could be too high for people weighing less than 50kg (8 stone), the NHS warns.
And the drug “may not be suitable” for those with liver or kidney problems.
It’s also not safe for those who regularly drink more than 14 units of alcohol (six medium glasses of wine) per week because alcohol puts stress on the liver.
But with the average Brit guzzling 18 units per week (according to Alcohol Change UK), this could apply to millions of us.
While the new study doesn’t prove paracetamol was the cause of these health issues, it does suggest the potential harms may outweigh the benefits, for certain people.
Study author, Professor Weiya Zhang, said: “Whilst further research is now needed to confirm our findings, given its minimal pain-relief effect, the use of paracetamol as a first-line pain killer for long-term conditions such as osteoarthritis in older people needs to be carefully considered.”
If paracetamol is Britain’s first port of call, ibuprofen is a close second.
Ibuprofen, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, works in a slightly different way to paracetamol and helps to reduce inflammation.
According to the NHS, it can be taken together with paracetamol.
The NHS says: “It’s safe to take paracetamol with other types of painkiller that do not contain paracetamol, such as ibuprofen, aspirin or codeine.”
However, you should not take paracetamol alongside any other medication that contains paracetamol.
