This pain medication may increase your hip fracture risk

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In a recent study published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, scientists found that the use of pain medication tramadol was linked to a higher risk of hip fractures compared with the use of other pain medications.

The study is from Central South University. One author is Guanghua Lei, MD, Ph.D.

In the study, the team did an analysis of a patient database from the United Kingdom.

They compared tramadol use with codeine, naproxen, ibuprofen, celecoxib, and etoricoxib use among adults aged 50 years or older.

During a one-year follow-up, they found 518 hip fractures occurred among 146,956 patients taking tramadol, corresponding to approximately one additional new hip fracture per 1000 person-years relative to taking codeine (3.7 vs. 2.9, respectively).

Likewise, up to 1.5 additional new fractures per 1000 person-years occurred with tramadol than with naproxen, ibuprofen, celecoxib, and etoricoxib.

The team says considering the big impact of hip fracture on morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs, the results point to the need to consider tramadol’s associated risk of fracture in clinical practice and treatment guidelines.

If you care about pain management, please read studies about this popular pain drug may hurt your blood sugar levels and findings of an important cause of statin-related muscle pain.

For more information about pain and your health, please see recent studies about a new way to treat chronic neuropathic pain and results showing that frequent use of pain and sleep drugs may double your frailty risk.

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