Posted on 05/10/2011 7:40:35 AM PDT by EBH
New research shows chronic users of acetaminophen, a top-selling painkiller known as Tylenol in the U.S. and paracetamol in Europe, are at slightly increased risk for blood cancers.
Yet the risk remains low, and it's still uncertain what role the drug plays.
The finding adds another twist to the complicated evidence linking cancer and painkillers, and hints acetaminophen might be different from the rest.
Earlier work has shown that aspirin use might lower the odds of dying from colon cancer but increase the risk of bleeding ulcers. The picture has been less clear for blood, or hematologic, cancers, however.
"Prior to this study there was very little evidence that aspirin reduces your risk of hematological cancers," said Emily White of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, who worked on the new research.
There were some suggestions that acetaminophen might increase the risk of the cancers, on the other hand, but those were based on individual cases of blood cancer.
Studies of individual patients aren't considered as strong as the new one, which tracked a large population of healthy people over time.
"We have the first prospective study," White told Reuters Health.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I’m thinking it might not be the drug, but more the reason the person is taking it. Are people with blood cancer more prone to pain? To arthritis? ect.
ping
If they are tracking healthy people, then why are these healthy people taking so much tylenol? Maybe people that get blood cancers are more prone to headaches? Just a thought.
Drinking water has been tied to human deaths. It has happened in 100% of cases so far.
I don’t take the crap anyway because I drink beer. Aspirin or nothing for me. Always have been that way.
Acetaminophen is included in other drugs. I take the equivelent of 5, 325 mg tablets per day, I was taking 10 but got my doc to lower the amount from 10-650 hydrocodone to 10-325.
Uh-oh
I live on tylenol PM....otherwise I’d never sleep. Have to re-think this...
If you get enough cancers they may destroy each other.
WASHINGTON (AP) ...It's not the first time acetaminophen, best known by the Tylenol brand, has drawn federal concern. There are warnings not to take it if you consume more than three alcoholic drinks, because the combination can poison your liver. But the latest worry is about overdoses: taking too much for too long, or mixing the myriad acetaminophen-containing headache, cold/flu and other remedies, or just popping extra pills. Link.There are natural ways to deal with pain/headaches. Tylenol is not good for your health.
“Ahh, maybe...maybe I can turn them cancers against one another.
That’s what you gotta hope for you know, that you get more than one cancer so they eat each other up instead of you.
In fact, the way I look at it, the more cancer you got, the healthier you are.” - George Carlin (Who didn’t die of Cancer)
Acetaminophen has always given me migraine level headaches. I don’t know how they can prescribe this chemical as a pain killer. Most of my family has the same reaction to this stuff, severe headaches.
My doc said that if a company tried to bring it on the market now it would never happen.
Also, if one takes any of the statin drugs (liptor, etc) is is VERY dangerous to use any acetaminophen at all.
Nasty stuff, overuse is very bad on the body in a number of ways.
I take aspirin. It works much better than anything else for osteoarthritis.
Ahhhhh!!! I forgot it is in other drugs.
Correlation does not mean causation but if it did in the case, it doesn't look like anything worth being concerned over.
OMG! We’re all gonna die!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.