Painkillers and kidney disease

Painkillers other than phenacetin do not increase the risk of kidney disease at a relatively young age. End-stage renal disease (ERSD) is the most advanced form of kidney disease. The association between analgesics and renal disease has always been controversial. A recent study confirms that there is no association between development of ESRD and use of phenacetin-free analgesics together, analgesics with a single substance, or analgesics with multiple components. Researchers investigated the relation between analgesics and kidney disease in a population-based study in Germany and Austria involving 907 cases of ESRD in individuals younger than age 50 years who were matched to 3,622 healthy controls. The results showed that there was no significant difference in ESRD risks between high and low use of compounds with or without caffeine, and the lack of increased risk persisted when examining patients with different underlying diseases related to ESRD. For most analgesics, in fact, there was a significantly lower risk of ESRD with low doses of analgesics used over a longer period of time. Thus, phenacetin-free analgesics are safe and the notion of analgesics causing renal disease needs to be re-evaluated.