Scientists from the University of Sydney found that some of the most common pain and fever medicines might increase vulnerability to infections like COVID-19, while others may hold hope for improving the immune response.
The findings highlight the potential for some of these medicines to join the fight against old and new infectious diseases.
The research is published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and was conducted by Christina Abdel-Shaheed et al.
In the study, the team focused on paracetamol, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and opioid analgesics.
They found some of the common pain and fever medications may work with the immune system to fight infection, whereas others work against it and increase the risk of contracting or responding badly to infectious diseases.
For pain: Morphine suppresses key cells of the immune system and increases the risk of infection, particularly after cancer surgery.
For fever: Antipyretics—e.g., paracetamol, ibuprofen, aspirin—can reduce the desirable immune response when taken for vaccination.
Aspirin could be an affordable and accessible therapeutic option for tuberculosis—which mainly afflicts poor countries, with beneficial results shown in animals and humans.
Anti-inflammatory medicine indomethacin may reduce viral replication in COVID-19 but large-scale human trials are needed.
The researchers say that an important finding of this review during the pandemic was that morphine—one of the most commonly used opioid analgesics in post-surgical and critical care—suppresses key innate immunity cells, thereby increasing the risk of infection.
This is particularly the case with cancer patients, who are already vulnerable to COVID-19.
On the positive side, the findings provide new insights for further research to evaluate these commonly used medicines, which could be repurposed to improve outcomes for people undergoing treatment for infectious diseases.
If you care about COVID, please read studies about people who can fight COVID-19 much better than others, and vitamin deficiency could strongly increase risk of severe COVID-19.
For more information about health, please see recent studies about the most effective method to reduce COVID-19 spread, and results showing these two anti-inflammatory drugs could boost recovery from severe COVID-19.
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