Friday, October 3, 2008

Common drug linked to increased risk of asthma and eczema in children.



If you have children the results of a new study just published should be of interest to you.

This was a large study that included 205,487 children aged 6-7 years old from 73 centers in 31 countries (Beasley R, et al, 2008). The researchers investigated the association between the use of paracetamol which is acetaminophen and asthma. Acetaminophen is sold under the brand name Tylenol which you probably are more familiar with.

The result showed that the use of paracetamol in the first year of life and in children aged 6-7 years was associated with the risk of severe asthma symptoms and also with an increased risk of symptoms of rhinoconjunctivitis (inflammation of the eyes) and eczema.

You may want to think twice before you give your child a medication to reduce fever and pain. In most cases it would probably not be necessary and the child could be better off without it.

References:

Beasley R, et al. Association between paracetamol use in infancy and childhood, and risk of asthma, rhinoconjunctivitis, and eczema in children aged 6-7 years: analysis from Phase Three of the ISAAC programme. Lancet. 2008 Sep 20;372(9643):1039-48.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I took a look at the paper and it is really a load of junk. It is a retrospective recall questioner that is looking for association only. There is no causality and no plausible explanation of a potential mechanism. It is also fundamentally flawed in that children with rhinoconjuctivitis (upper-airway infections) and asthma are certainly going to get more tylenol as a function of their illness. In addition the assertion that eczema is linked to tylenol is flawed as well in that children with asthma have higher rates of eczema. We could do the same study with humidifiers, antibiotics, air filters etc . . . and likely get the same results. This kind of study drives me nuts because it's junk and puts irrational fear in people who will now hesitate to treat their childs fever.

Unknown said...

The study was published in "The Lancet", which is a very well respected medical journal. For those who are interested, you can click on the reference which will take you to the original abstract of the article.