Paracetamol disrupts early embryogenesis by cell cycle inhibition

Roughly:

- Paracetamol overdose can cause severe liver damage and may be fatal.

- Ibuprofen in high doses can lead to kidney injury and stomach bleeding.

- Aspirin overdose may result in salicylate poisoning, causing ringing in the ears, confusion, and metabolic acidosis.

Other drugs like theophylline have ceased to be prescribed for a similar reason alternatives were available, but due to drug marketing, acetaminophen is touted as the "safe" pain reliever.

This is why Ibuprofen is perhaps the better default painkiller.

Total culture shock for me, as in Europe the default for children is rectal ingestion (which is probably a culture shock as well for Americans). Any how, with pills it is much easier to avoid overdose.

> These results suggest that APAP should be used with caution by women attempting to conceive. Given that cell division is fundamental to all development, further investigation is now warranted to substantiate these findings and to elucidate possible implications for other developmental processes, such as gonadal and brain differentiation.

I guess the safest way is to take up the treatment in a hospital, to check for immediate bad reactions.

On the other hand, like with many medications, severe allergies and individual sensibilities causing side effects often don't show up often in the short term, but rather suddenly after many dose intakes.

So I'm back where I started. Not disagreeing with what you say. It seems like these non-steroidal pain relief medications are poorly understood regarding their interaction with the whole body though.

Many OTC medications and even some prescribed ones (especially psychiatric medications) suffer from a very poor understanding and apparent lack of effort in improving the understanding of their mechanisms of action.

For instance, if spontaneous abortion is normally 1% and smoking increases it to 2%, then that’s a 100% increase. Now, I don’t know the actual numbers, and smoking is just generally not good for one’s health, but I wouldn’t go as far to say things were stacked against you.

Please don't give health advice on the internet. I'm not a doctor but I'm a biochemist, and there are MANY situations where ibuprofen is less safe.

Taking ibuprofen (or other NSAIDs) long-term can wear away the stomach lining, causing ulcers. Acetaminophen is generally better tolerated to manage mild long-term pain than NSAIDs, as long as you don't overdose / take with alcohol.

Ibuprofen is not better in every way. For instance ibuprofen, as well as other NSAIDs, is much less gentle on gastrointestinal tract and puts much more strain on kidneys.

Some people (e.g. with inflammatory bowel diseases or renal diseases) do not tolerate NSAIDs well, which is why acetaminophen is on the same step of analgesic ladder - it is still considered better in some cases. Both are also used complementary to each other in pediatrics.

I'd love if you did. What's the story there?

Ibuprofen is not better in every way. Ibuprofen is active in so many different parts of the body at the same time that inevitably it has unintended effects which is more pronounced especially in the elderly. It's bad for stomach, bad for kidneys, bad for mental status. and very bad with long-term use.

TLDR. Both aren't great for different reasons. Tylenol can be acutely OD'd and evidence is starting to show it isn't great embryos. Outside of those 2 situations that can be easily avoided, it is overall less bad than ibuprofen.

Give me paracetamol over ibuprofen in most cases. Ibuprofen is much more likely to cause stomach issues than I am to miscalculate "take 2 paracetamol every 4-6 hours".