Health and longevity / Chapter 34
Fever reducers, painkillers, cold medicines, stomach medicines, and anti-diarrhea medicines: many of them can be bought at a pharmacy with no prescription. Being able to buy them with no prescription does not mean any way of taking them is fine. This section does not say which medicine to take for each illness. It only picks a few actions that each avoid a serious outcome.
Every item is scored on the mortality scale, including health endpoints such as liver failure, stomach bleeding, and kidney failure in a newborn. Most of the benefit is one fewer serious accident. Studies do not give a figure for how much doing it would cut the risk. The size of the benefit is judged by how heavy the outcome is, and each note says why it was set that way.
What is already written elsewhere is only pointed to here. If a medicine or a cleaning product is swallowed by mistake, see section 13, item 20 (accidental ingestion). For taking a chronic-disease medicine in full as the doctor ordered, see section 16, item 1 (finish the medicine as prescribed). For buying a prescription drug online, the prescription has to be checked first, see section 28, item 6 (get weight-loss drugs with a hospital prescription).
The people these items benefit are you and your family, the top two tiers.
Many cold medicines contain acetaminophen. Taking 2 boxes together means a double dose, and too much harms the liver. …
Aspirin is linked to Reye's syndrome, an illness that harms the brain and the liver, and about 3 in 10 of the sick children die. Nimesulide is forbidden under 12. Metamizole is forbidden under 18. …
Painkillers such as ibuprofen, naproxen, and aspirin can harm the stomach. …
The National Medical Products Administration requires a warning on 14 kinds of combination cold medicines for children. The warning says it does not recommend that a parent give the medicine to a child under 2 on their own. …
Taking a drug like ibuprofen after 20 weeks of pregnancy can harm the kidneys of the fetus and leave less fluid around the baby. …
Omeprazole enteric-coated tablets (tablets with a delayed-release coating) have been sold with no prescription since 2022, but the leaflet says not to take them on your own for more than 7 days, and not to take them again within 2 months. …
Antibiotics for a cold do not make you better any faster than not taking them. For an adult who takes them, the risk of side effects is more than twice the risk of not taking them. …
What matters most in diarrhea is replacing water, not stopping the diarrhea. Mix oral rehydration salts with water the way the leaflet says, and drink that. Do not use fruit juice or a soft drink instead. …
If headaches keep coming and you take a painkiller every day, you may hurt more the more you take. The international headache classification calls this a medication-overuse headache, a headache brought on by the medicine itself. …
In the United States, of the medicines a child swallowed without an adult watching, nearly half were prescription tablets. Of those prescription medicines, about 3 in 10 belonged to a grandparent. …
Some cephalosporins, and drugs such as metronidazole, make the face flush and bring on sweating and a racing heart if they meet alcohol. A severe case brings trouble breathing and a drop in blood pressure. …
Many combination cold medicines mix in an anti-allergy ingredient such as chlorphenamine or diphenhydramine, and taking it makes you drowsy. …
This part comes from the parveen0029/The-Evidence-Based-Life edition.
Grapefruit contains compounds that permanently block an enzyme in your small intestine responsible for breaking down certain medications. …
This item has not been translated yet. Showing the original Chinese text.
肾不好的人吃布洛芬这类止痛药，更容易出急性肾损伤，长期自己乱吃还和肾衰竭有关。在吃利尿药加普利或沙坦类降压药的，再加上这类药，急性肾损伤多约三成。肾不好的人吃杨桃，可能打嗝不止、神志不清、抽搐，已报告的这类中毒病例里约三成死亡。
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