Acetaminophen, whether it’s in Tylenol, Arthritis Pain Relief, Nyquil, or Vicodin, is safe as long as you don’t take too much. The new maximum dose likely to be recommended by the FDA is 2600 to 3250 milligrams a day. That’s ten 325-milligram Tylenols.
Tara Parker-Pope has a question and answer post on the subject in today’s NY TImes. One question is: As a precaution, should consumers switch to other types of over-the-counter pain relief?
Emphatically, no. Every drug has risks and side effects, but over all the risk of acetaminophen to any individual is low. Far more people are harmed by regular use of aspirin and ibuprofen, which belong to a class of medicines called nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or Nsaids. By most estimates, more than 100,000 Americans are hospitalized each year with complications associated with Nsaids. And 15,000 to 20,000 die from ulcers and internal bleeding linked to their use.
By comparison, there are only about 2,000 cases of acute liver failure, and about half of them are related to drug toxicity. Of the drug-induced cases, 40 percent are due to acetaminophen, and half of those are a result of intentional overdose.
Consumers also wonder if they have already damaged their livers by regular use of Tylenol.
The risks associated with acetaminophen overdose are acute or immediate liver failure, not chronic liver disease. Even if you’ve been taking Tylenol or other drugs with acetaminophen for years, there is no reason to worry about long-term liver damage as long as you are using them as directed. (By comparison, regular use of Nsaids like aspirin and ibuprofen can lead to chronic gastrointestinal problems over time.) …
“It would be a real shame if people in reading these stories got the idea that acetaminophen is not safe,” said Dr. Paul Watkins, director of the Institute for Drug Safety Sciences at the Hamner Institutes and the University of North Carolina. “It’s totally safe when taken as directed. The problem is that people end up unknowingly taking much more than recommended.”
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