Fever-Reducing Meds May Help Spread the Flu

[cronus]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 091318.htm

Fever-Reducing Meds May Help Spread the Flu

Jan. 22, 2014 — Contrary to popular belief, fever-reducing medication may inadvertently cause more harm than good.

New research from McMaster University has discovered that the widespread use of medications that contain fever-reducing drugs may lead to tens of thousands more influenza cases, and more than a thousand deaths attributable to influenza, each year across North America. These drugs include ibuprofen, acetaminophen and acetylsalicylic acid.
"When they have flu, people often take medication that reduces their fever. No-one likes to feel miserable, but it turns out that our comfort might be at the cost of infecting others," said lead author David Earn, an investigator with the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research (IIDR) and professor of mathematics at McMaster University.
"Because fever can actually help lower the amount of virus in a sick person's body and reduce the chance of transmitting disease to others, taking drugs that reduce fever can increase transmission. We've discovered that this increase has significant effects when we scale up to the level of the whole population."

The study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B today, was co-authored with McMaster professors Ben Bolker, of the departments of mathematics & statistics and biology and the IIDR, and Paul Andrews of the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour.
"People often take -- or give their kids -- fever-reducing drugs so they can go to work or school," Earn said. "They may think the risk of infecting others is lower because the fever is lower. In fact, the opposite may be true: the ill people may give off more virus because fever has been reduced."

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[Svartalf]

WTF?

[cronus]

WTF?

They must die so you can live....

[Svartalf]

When I got the flu, I avoid going out and contact with other people, even if I take anti fever and pain reducing drugs, aspirin and paracetamol in particular.

[cronus]

When I got the flu, I avoid going out and contact with other people, even if I take anti fever and pain reducing drugs, aspirin and paracetamol in particular.

....choices not all have. In the event of pandemic they should remove, probably will remove, all these meds from the shelves and let folks sweat it out to reduce a lethal spread.

[Svartalf]

I sure hope not... I like my paracetamol when I'm in pain.

[cronus]

I sure hope not... I like my paracetamol when I'm in pain.

Stock up now, then. Don't wait for the day when it all becomes real.

[MrJonno]

Make sense , your body temperature rises when you get an infection to increase the efficiency of your immune system. Of course if your immune system over reacts you can die but that's rare for flu.

So basically anti-fever drugs could definitely make you feel better while being infected longer.

I believe emergency medicine no longer considers reducing body temperature automatically as a good thing.

[JimC]

Compulsory saunas are the answer!

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

I'd have thought it was simpler than explained:-

Don't take meds...feel like crap...don't go out...keep that shit to yourself.
Or:-
Take meds...feel better...go out and socialise...spread lurgi.

[Svartalf]

Dunno, I take meds not to feel like crap and sstill avoid going out until I really am better

[JimC]

I'd have thought it was simpler than explained:-

Don't take meds...feel like crap...don't go out...keep that shit to yourself.
Or:-
Take meds...feel better...go out and socialise...spread lurgi.

Yet, as Svartalf said, there is choice involved...

Dunno, I take meds not to feel like crap and sstill avoid going out until I really am better

But the article went a little further. Not only is there a risk that people will socialise earlier because they feel better with less fever, but it seems that reducing the fever actually increases the viral load, and thus the chance of spreading it...

[pErvinalia]

This isn't surprising to me. I've wondered about all sorts of counter-measures we medically take to stop natural bodily reactions. There's often a good evolutionary reason why our bodies react the way they do. The rising temperature of fever is an obvious one. Another one I've wondered about was swelling (in non-break cases). The idea of swelling, I expect, was to immobilise an injured region of the body. By fighting the swelling for the purposes of allowing ourselves to remain more mobile, we run the risk of further damage/inflammation to the affected region. In a sense, it's the same with pain killers, in some instances. If the pain killer is only treating the symptom, and not the cause, depending on what the cause is you run the risk of worsening whatever condition is causing it. We probably expect too much out of our bodies, and society demands too much out of our bodies. We should all aim to rest more, instead of continue working injured.