Yet another new study will have people questioning the safety of medications long believed to be as harmless as rainwater. Researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle studied about 65,000 older men and women in Washington state and asked them about their use of painkillers in the past decade. At the onset, none of the participants had been diagnosed with cancer, but over the course of the six-year study period, about one percent 577 people developed cancer involving the blood cells. More than 9 percent of the people who developed lymphoma or cancer of the blood-forming organs were found to have regularly used acetaminophen (Tylenol); of the participants who did not become ill, only five percent were regular Tylenol users.
According to lead author Emily White, A person who is age 50 or older has about a 1 percent risk in ten years of getting one of these cancers. Our study suggests that if you use acetaminophen at least four times a week for at least four years, that would increase the risk to about two percent.
Other painkillers, such as aspirin or ibuprofen, were not associated with an elevated risk of blood cancers. Dr. White reminds us, however, that no painkiller is free of side effects, which is something ACSH's Dr. Josh Bloom seconds. Tylenol is not an NSAID and has no similarity to that class of drug either chemically or pharmacalogically. Although it is much easier on the stomach, Tylenol is metabolized into a toxic by-product. Too much of the metabolite at one time can be fatal, he says.
Indeed, if you take 30 regular-strength Tylenol tablets at once, you ll eradicate your kidneys, cause severe liver disease and inevitably, death, warns ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross. And if you combine Tylenol with alcohol or other cold medications, you re putting yourself at an even greater risk.
The relative risk of developing blood cancers through use of Tylenol is still low reassuring news since, as Dr. Ross notes, the drug is often used to manage chronic pain because there aren t many safer alternatives available.
