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Originally Posted by quietserena  I saw somewhere on here that acetaminophen and ibuprofen increase the chance of complications with some viral diseases, perhaps mumps.
Can anyone point me to some good reading on this? I actually don't even know how those two work, and really, it seems like if I knew I might understand the answer to that question.
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I think this may get moved to the health forum but....
antipyretics have the potential to cause complications in ANY infection whether it's viral or bacterial. Fever is the bodies natural immune response to infection. It indicates that the immune system is functioning as it should. Your blood and lymphatic system make white blood cells, which fight infection. When you have an infection, you make lots and lots of these cells. They work faster and faster to try and fight off the infection. The increase in these white blood cells affects the part of your brain that controls your body temperature (the hypothalamus). Lowering a fever disrupts the bodies natural ability to fight the infection, which can cause an increase in morbidity and mortality. There is plenty about this in the medical literature. Here are a few places you can read about it:
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| "There is no convincing evidence that naturally occuring fevers are harmful. In contrast, animal studies have shown that fever helps animals to survive and infection whereas antipyretic increases mortality. Moreover there is considerable in vitro evidence that a variety of human immunological defences function better at febrile temperatures than at normal one." |
(The Lancet, Volume 337, March 9, 1991)
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| There is overwhelming evidence in favor of fever being an adaptive host response to infection... as such, it is probable that the use of antipyretic/anti-inflammatory/analgesic drugs, when they lead to suppression of the fever, result in increased morbidity and mortality during most infections; this morbidity and mortality may not be apparent to most health care workers..." |
(Infect Dis Clin North Am 1996 Mar;10(1) : 1-20.)
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| "The data suggest that frequent administration of antipyretics to children with infectious disease may lead to a worsening of their illness." |
(Acta Paed. Jpn 1994 Aug;36 (4) 375-378)
as I said there are tons of citations in the literature, these are but a few.
