Teenagers who regularly take paracetamol, the widely used over-the-counter painkiller, are more than twice as likely to develop asthma and serious allergies, a new study has claimed.
The research, involving 300,000 teenagers aged 13 and 14, found that those who had paracetamol once a month were 2.5 times as likely to have asthma than those who never took it.
And those who used it once a year were 50 per cent more likely to have asthma, it was found.
The research, carried out by a team from the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand, also linked paracetamol use to allergic nasal congestion and eczema, the Telegraph reported.
Although the researchers could not determine whether paracetamol was definitely the cause of the increased risk of asthma, eczema and nasal allergies, they suggested that
the painkiller might be interfering with the immune system and causing inflammation in the airways.
"The overall population attributable risks for current symptoms of severe asthma were around 40 per cent, suggesting that if the associations were causal, they would be of major public health significance," said lead author Dr Richard Beasley.