Ibuprofen, a widely used painkiller found in many medicine cabinets, is part of the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) family.
It’s a go-to for treating pain and fever, but it’s also known to have some serious side effects, such as heart issues and an increased risk of stroke.
However, what many might not know is that ibuprofen could also be affecting our livers in ways we hadn’t fully understood, particularly with differences seen between males and females.
A team of researchers from the University of California Davis embarked on a study to delve deeper into this issue.
They gave mice a moderate daily dose of ibuprofen, equivalent to what an adult human might take (about 400 mg), and observed the effects over a week.
Using advanced mass spectrometry, they were able to see how the drug changed the liver’s metabolic pathways.
The results were quite surprising. The researchers discovered that ibuprofen caused significant alterations in liver proteins, affecting at least 34 different metabolic pathways in male mice.
These pathways are crucial for the metabolism of amino acids, hormones, vitamins, and even the production of reactive substances like oxygen and hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide, in particular, can harm proteins and stress liver cells, indicating that ibuprofen may be more harmful to the liver than previously recognized.
Even more intriguing was the discovery that ibuprofen’s effects varied significantly between male and female mice. For example, the way the liver’s proteasome — essentially its waste-disposal system — reacted to the drug differed greatly between the sexes.
This suggests that when combined with other medications, ibuprofen could potentially cause drugs to linger longer in the body, particularly in males, a phenomenon that hadn’t been shown before.
These findings led the researchers to caution against the overuse of ibuprofen and other common drugs, especially for conditions like mild pain that might not warrant such potent medication.
They also highlighted the need for the scientific community to pay more attention to the differences in drug metabolism and effects between males and females.
The implications of this study are significant, suggesting a need for more personalized approaches to medication based on sex and possibly other factors.
This research, spearheaded by Professor Aldrin Gomes and his team, published in Scientific Reports, opens the door to reevaluating how we use some of our most common medications and underscores the importance of understanding the full spectrum of their effects on the body.
If you care about liver health, please read studies about simple habit that could give you a healthy liver, and common diabetes drug that may reverse liver inflammation.
For more information about health, please see recent studies about simple blood test that could detect your risk of fatty liver disease, and results showing this green diet may strongly lower non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
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