Drinking a lot or being very overweight May cause liver cell damage Y scars. Over time, this can lead to a stage of advanced scarring in the liver known as cirrhosis. A lesser-known risk factor for the disease is toxicity of paracetamol.
Paracetamol is an effective treatment for mild to moderate pain and fever in adults and childrenwhen used as directed in the product information.
Related news
The maximum dose should never be exceeded within a 24-hour period.
The paracetamol overdose is one of the main causes of acute liver failure.
Scientists have known for decades that the paracetamol in large quantities is extremely toxic to the liverbut so far their mechanism of intoxication has eluded them.
Dr. Leonard Nelson, from the University of Edinburgh, told the British outlet Express:
“Paracetamol is the preferred analgesic in the world. It is inexpensive and is considered safe and effective in therapeutic doses. However, drug-induced liver injury remains a major clinical problem and a challenge for the development of safer drugs. Our findings reinforce the need for vigilance in acetaminophen use and could help uncover how harm from its adverse use can be prevented.»
In a study published in Science Directparacetamol and how it affects the liver was investigated.
The study discovered how the drug can damage the liver by damaging vital structural connections between adjacent cells of the organ.
When these cell wall connections, known as tight junctionsare interrupted, the liver tissue is damaged, which in turn causes cells do not work properly.
This damage occurs in liver conditions such as hepatitis, cirrhosis or cancer, however, until now it was not related to paracetamol toxicity.
The site continued:
“Paracetamol-related liver failure, so severe that the patient needs a transplant, occurs in the UK eight times more than in the Netherlands, twice more than in France and 66 times more than in Italy.
Last year, a seven-country study commissioned by the European Medicines Agency found that only Ireland fared worse than Britain.
Paracetamol overdoses account for 20 per cent of liver transplants in Europe, but rise to 52 per cent in Ireland and 28 per cent in the UK, falling to 1 per cent in Italy.»
Signs that you may be at risk for liver disease include:
- Yellow skin and eyes (jaundice)
- Bloating and abdominal pain
- Swelling of legs and ankles.
- Skin itch
- dark color of urine
- pale colored stool
- chronic fatigue
- Nausea or vomiting.