A touch of flu?: Hold the painkillers

• Autores: Debora MacKenzie
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 2953, 2014, pág. 12
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • With the flu season under way across Europe and North America, millions will be taking flu remedies, which commonly include painkillers. The general medical advice in the UK and the US is to take painkillers such as paracetamol (acetaminophen) or aspirin. But although painkillers can make people feel better they also lower fever, which can make the virus worse. The first analysis of the effect of this on the population shows that painkillers taken at current levels to treat fevers could cause 2000 flu deaths each year in the US alone. David Earn at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada says that some studies have shown that lowering fever may prolong viral infections and increase the amount of virus they can pass on to others. To find out what impact this might have on a flu epidemic, Earn and his colleagues turned to a 1982 study which showed that ferrets, a common animal model for human flu, produced more seasonal flu virus if their fevers were lowered either with painkillers or by having their fur shaved off.