People who take painkillers other than heart disease, diabetes and stroke medication increase their risk of obesity by 95%.
Beware! Excessive consumption of painkillers can increase obesity risk by 95%
HIGHLIGHTS
- Overuse of painkillers regularly can spike obesity risk by 95%
- Opioids act on your body like a sedative
- Opioids worsen snoring, untreated sleep apnea
Researchers from the Newcastle University in UK found that excess use of over-the-counter painkillers on a regular basis can increase obesity risk by 95%. This study is the largest of its kind and explains that people who take painkillers other than heart disease, diabetes and stroke medication increase their risk of obesity by 95%.
Results of the study revealed that people who take opiates along with cardio-metabolic medicines were 95% times more likely to be obese, 82% more likely to have a high waist circumference and 63% more likely to deal with hypertension as compared to people who were only taking cardio-metabolic medicines.
"We already know that opiates are dependency-forming but this study also found patients taking opiates have the worst health. Obesity rates are much higher and the patients reported sleeping poorly," said lead author and research associate Sophie Cassidy, at the Newcastle University.
Opioids act on your body like a sedative. It makes you less active and also alters your taste perceptions by increasing your cravings for sweet and sugary food. Not only this, opioids interfere with other aspects like worsening snoring, untreated sleep apnea and nocturnal hypertension. Researchers recommended that these painkiller medications be taken for a short period of time to reduce the health risks associated with it.
"These results add further weight to calls for these chronic pain medications to be prescribed for shorter periods," Cassidy added.
For this study, they assessed the correlation between metabolic and cardiovascular diseases in over 133000 people from UK. Their BMI, waist circumference and BP was compared between those who took painkillers for chronic, non-cancer and cardio metabolic drugs and those who took only cardio-metabolic medication.
Opioids are known as the most dangerous drugs due to the fact that they can be addictive which can further lead to abuse. Patients may get so addicted to these medicines that they may require continuous and frequent use of these drugs to feel normal and avoid withdrawal symptoms. 24 million opiates prescriptions were issued in the US in 2016, which is double the number of prescription in 2006.To make it worse, 11000 patients were hospitalized two years ago due to overdose of these medicines.
The findings were published in PLOS ONE.
With inputs from IANS
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