Long-term use of ibuprofen trebles risk of stroke

In a novel study researchers warned that larger regular use of ibuprofen and analogous painkillers could increase the risk of stroke and possibility of heart attack among users. It was found that ibuprofen bring same health risk to painkiller that were inhibited from market few years back.

To verify the long term effects of ibuprofen, the research team from the University of Ben in Switzerland analyzed more than thirty clinical trials that involved more than one lakh and sixteen thousand patients. All the participants had taken one of the seven normally used painkillers.

The results of the study showed that those who had taken ibuprofen over a longer periods of time had three times more prone to suffer a stroke, reported the study published in the British Medical Journal. The painkillers had also shown to increase considerably the risk of heart attack and death due to heart diseases.

Another frequently prescribed medicine is diclofenac which also almost trebles the risk of stroke and raises the possibility of heart disease and related deaths by four times. The study also recommended that ibuprofen carried an analogous risk of stroke and death from heart disease to rofecoxib that had inhibited from market in 2004 over safety issues.

They observed patients who were taking these drugs three to four times a day. They were treated for rheumatoid arthritis. Many among them were elderly who already had lots of risk factors and those would be duplicated with such painkiller, explained Prof Peter Jüni from the University of Bern.

Doctors stress that the stroke and heart attack only subsist for those taking high doses of ibuprofen over long periods of time and there is no danger in the odd pill for a headache.