Top-selling painkiller named as asthma suspect

By SHENAGH GLEESON

Paracetamol, New Zealand's most commonly used drug, could be linked with asthma.

The link has been suggested in a report on the biggest study of asthma yet undertaken.

It involved 140,000 people in 22 countries, including New Zealand.

European researchers found that paracetamol sales were high in English-speaking countries, and were associated with asthma symptoms, eczema and allergic eye problems in children, and asthma, eye and bronchial problems in adults.

New Zealand has one of the highest incidences of asthma in the world. About 600,000 New Zealanders - about one in three children and one in seven adults - have the illness.

And paracetamol, a pain-reliever, is the country's most commonly prescribed drug.

Last year almost a million prescriptions were dispensed.

It is also available in Panadol, a common over-the-counter pain reliever.

The 10-year Swedish survey study involving 14 experts was published in the European Respiratory Journal last week.

New Zealand data came from research in Wellington, Christchurch and Hawkes Bay.

The study showed that in some countries, people were up to eight times more likely to contract allergic respiratory diseases than in other apparently similar places.

A high prevalence was found in New Zealand, Australia, Britain and the United States, but not in Iceland, Greece, Norway, Italy and Spain.

The possible paracetamol-asthma link follows a similar finding in research reported late last year.

The medical director of the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation of New Zealand, Professor Ian Town, said that although he had not seen a full report of the new study, the findings were of concern.

Asthma users were high users of paracetamol because they had been warned of the risk of taking aspirin-based pain relievers, he said.

Aspirin could cause serious attacks in a small number of sufferers.

After the study last year, the foundation had also warned people with asthma to avoid taking large doses of paracetamol frequently.



That advice would be reviewed to see if it needed strengthening.

Professor Town said the next step was to conduct a controlled trial.

European researchers are planning such trials.

They will give one group paracetamol and the other a placebo and see what happens.

Green Party health spokeswoman Sue Kedgley says the Government drug-subsidising agency, Pharmac, should work with doctors and pharmacies to try to reduce consumption of paracetamol.

She was particularly concerned at the high consumption of paracetamol by children, because of their high asthma rates.

"We need to educate doctors about its potentially harmful side-effects, and urge restraint by the medical profession."