The study found that older women ages 51-77, who used an average of 400 mg of NSAIDs (2 ibuprofin tablets) or more per day were about 78% more likely to develop high blood pressure compared to older women who did not use the drugs.
Younger women ages 34-53, who used more than 400 mg a day of NSAIDs, were found to have a 60% higher chance of developing high blood pressure.
The risk of developing high blood pressure for women not taking any of the painkillers was only about 1 to 3% a year, researchers found.
The results of this study held up even when researchers excluded women who were taking pills for headaches, something that could itself be a result of very high blood pressure, said Dr Gary Curhan, one of the study's authors from Harvard Medical School.
In May 2005, Web MD warned all people with high blood pressure not to use ibuprofen or naproxen, unless a doctor explicitly said they could. The drugs, Web MD advised, "can also impair the effectiveness of common blood pressure medicines like ace inhibitors (such as Lotensin, Capoten, and Vasotec) and beta blockers (such as Coreg, Lopressor, and Corgard.)"
But as it turns out, this is nothing new. According to Dr Stuttaford, in the May 26, 2006, Times Online: "Research carried out well over twenty years ago showed that the NSAIDs also had a tendency to increase blood pressure."
"This tendency," he said, "was more likely to be evident in those patients who had been treated with medication to reduce blood pressure."
In addition, a 2005 study reported in High Blood Connection, found that NSAIDs also increase the risk for kidney failure, and that the risk is significantly greater for patients with hypertension.
Patients who took diuretics along with NSAIDs, the study found, had 11.6 times the risk of developing acute kidney failure compared to non-NSAID users. The relative risk for calcium channel blockers and NSAIDs was 7.8. The researchers warned that NSAIDs should be used with caution in patients with hypertension or heart failure.
Because there is no mandatory reporting system for post marketing adverse affects for drugs, only between 1% and 10% of all adverse reactions to medications are ever reported to the FDA, which means the actual number of patients harmed by NSAIDs is impossible to determine.
For this reason, the accurate number of cases of Stevens Johnson Syndrome caused by NSAIDs in the US are unavailable. Described in many package inserts as a "serious skin condition," SJS is a devastating allergic reaction to a drug described by some as "a fate worse than death."
SJS is characterized by an extremely painful skin rash and blistering sores in the mouth, throat, nostrils, eyes, and anal and genital areas. In the most serious cases, a patient's skin peels off in sheets from large areas of the body, much like what happens to severe burn patients.
According to experts, SJS causes the immune system to turn on itself to rid the body of the offending drug, in effect burning the patient from the inside out. SJS results in death in 10 to 30% of the cases.
Although SJS was once a rare condition, it is becoming far more common. According to the February 15, 2005 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, there are now between 600-2,000 new cases in the US each year.
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