The Nurses Health Study at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston has revealed that women who take daily amounts of non-aspirin painkillers, such as Extra-Strength Tylenol, are more likely to develop high blood pressure than those who do not.
Tylenol had long been considered a relatively safe product, being one of few non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, also known as NSAIDs. The federal government required NSAIDs to carry a warning label giving notice of the dangerous heart-related side effects of the drugs. Among the NSAIDs are Advil, Motrin, and Aleve. Despite previous allegations, it has been discovered that women taking Tylenol are actually twice as likely to suffer blood pressure complications. Research shows that aspirin remains the safest pain relief drug.
The study was performed on 5,123 women, none of which had high blood pressure at the start of the study. It was found that women aged 51-77 who took a daily average dose of over 500 milligrams of acetaminophen, the mass and chemical substance of one Extra-Strength Tylenol, would have double the risk for high blood pressure in about three years. Similarly, women who took more than 400 milligrams of NSAIDs (such as ibuprofen) had a 78% increase in their risk of developing high blood pressure.
