The misuse of these medicines, exponentially increased with the Covid pandemic, can be dangerous to health. Here’s what you need to know about the risks of overdose.
Paracetamol tablets / Getty
Although they can be purchased without a prescription, the paracetamol, like all medicines, they can have side effects and, if used incorrectly or abused, can be dangerous to your health. To draw attention to their free sale, which has grown exponentially with the Covid pandemic, is a report by independent experts published by the Therapeutics Goods Administration, the drug regulatory authority in Australia, which found a “worrying increase” of the improper use of paracetamol in the country, particularly among adolescents and young adults and more frequently among women and girls. The greatest risk, experts indicate, comes from overdose, which causes 40-50 deaths each year in Australia, of which about half are due to liver failure. This does not mean that acetaminophen is an unsafe drug, but extensive misuse represents a risk to the health of citizens.
What is paracetamol and when is it dangerous
Paracetamol is a drug belonging to the class of antipyretics and analgesics among the most used in the world (among the top fifty also in Italy) and its safety and tolerability profile is well established, even in children. It is used for the treatment of mild to moderate pain associated with headache, toothache, menstruation, cold syndromes, back pain, osteoarthritis, and fever. Possible side effects, in the recommended dosage, they are modest and rarely observedand essentially include skin rashes and haematological disorders.
However, due to misuse, cases of overdose of paracetamol “account for the majority of hospital admissions for poisoning in people over 10 years of age – indicates the ratio -. The increases were most marked in people aged 10 to 24 and for women, who accounted for two-thirds of hospitalizations.”.
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Paracetamol poisoning and, specifically, intentional overdose is “2 to 3 times more frequent in women than in menwith a significant increase in events involving adolescents in the period 2019-2021“And is currently”almost twice as common as unintended overdose”.
The Risks of Paracetamol Overdose
Survival rates after acetaminophen overdose are excellent, but “only when seeking medical treatment within six hours“The experts specify. If not, there is a severe risk of liver damage and sometimes death.
The Australian report also found that the intentional overdose in young people it is linked to the availability of acetaminophen in the home and that the ease of purchase without a prescription has contributed to the poisoning. The most severe cases occurred after ingestion of acetaminophen modified release compared to immediate-release acetaminophen, as modified-release tablets contain a higher dose which is slowly released into the body over a number of hours. Therefore, the authors of the report recommended “to raise awareness of the safe storage of medicines and to reduce unwanted stocks of medicines at home“e you”limit the purchase of acetaminophen without a prescription to adults aged 18 and over”.
As for modified-release acetaminophen – currently available as an over-the-counter drug in Australia but prohibited in Europewhere the sale was suspended in 2017 due to the risks of a possible overdose – the report recommends making this medicine affordable only with medical prescription.