Tylenol Associated with Hypertension
It’s the kind of headline that could frighten many women — popular over-the-counter pain relievers are possibly linked to high blood pressure.
A study published in the research journal Hypertension found that women taking two Tylenol a day were almost twice as likely — 93 percent more likely — to develop high blood pressure within three years as those who didn’t. And women taking two Advil or Motrin a day were up to 78 percent more likely to develop high blood pressure.
But not all medical studies are created equal. Many doctors today were unusually critical of this latest research, and they worried about the fear it could trigger.
“I think it is flawed research, and I think it’s being greatly over-interpreted,” said Dr. Steven Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic. “It’s really weak evidence.”
The study is flawed, doctors said, because the researchers never actually measured people’s blood pressure. They left it up to the patients, in a questionnaire, to say whether they’d been recently diagnosed with hypertension.
The researchers also never counted the pills patients were taking — again, leaving it up to people to self-report what they were taking at the beginning of the study, with no follow-up to see if they were taking the same pills at the end of the study.
Reference - ABC News, StraightFromTheDoc
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