Paracetamol doubles teens’ chances of getting asthma

LONDON - Teenagers who take paracetamol regularly more than double their chances of getting asthma, says a study.

A study of more than 300,000 teenagers, aged 13 and 14 years, found those who took paracetamol once a month were 2.5 times as likely to have asthma than those who didn’t.

The research also linked paracetamol use to allergic nasal congestion and eczema, reports the Telegraph.

A Medical Research Institute team from New Zealand which conducted the study attributed the growing risk of asthma, eczema and nasal allergies to pacaretamol.

They indicated that the painkiller might interfere with the immune system and cause inflammation in the airways, says the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Richard Beasley, professor of medicine at the Medical Research Institute, said that almost half of severe asthma cases could be prevented if use of paracetamol was avoided.

Teenagers who used paracetamol once a year were 38 percent more likely to have allergic nasal congestion and those who used it once a month were more than twice as likely to have the condition than those who never took the painkiller.

For eczema, once a year users of paracetamol were almost a third more likely to have the skin condition and once a month users were just under twice as likely to have it as non-users.