6 ms·

Ibuprofen is an anti-inflammation drug, which means it weakens somewhat your immune system (which is responsible for the inflammation in the first place). It ma

Ibuprofen is an anti-inflammation drug, which means it weakens somewhat your immune system (which is responsible for the inflammation in the first place). It makes sort of sense that taking such medication while infected with a virus for which there is no treatment can be dangerous. In related news, there have been cases of "severe" forms of Covid-19 among young people with no antecedents, all of them having taken ibuprofen. Please don't take ibuprofen.

neuronic 7y ago
Why are you putting severe in quotation marks? What makes you feel qualified to give medical advice on an Internet forum? There might be negatives to taking ibuprofen in relation to COVID-19, but so far no official guidelines exist. Only internet stories. Responsible institutes have not handed out such advice, nowhere.
- throwawayy477 7y ago
  > Why are you putting severe in quotation marks? Because I don't know the official terminology. >What makes you feel qualified to give medical advice on an Internet forum? Because of where I work I have been given "primary sources", but of course you are free to not believe me. This is my own sentiment, feel free to look things up yourself. > no official guidelines exist. Only internet stories. Not in the US, maybe, but such guidelines definitely exist where I live. Again, you do you
  - neuronic 7y ago
    If any official source, regardless of country, recommends to abstain from ibuprofen I would simply like to know. I neither live in the US nor think that scientists and medical personnel in other country are less educated or trained. I think it's about distinguishing important information from stuff people randomly write online because a non-peer reviewed study made a hypothesis. The goal is for everyone around the globe to be as safe as possible and misinformation in the context of medical advice is not helpful. Of course it's better not to take ibuprofen, in any case. But some people may rely on it or other NSAIDs.
    - throwawayy477 7y ago
      First hit on google "coronavirus ibuprofen" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/anti-inflammatory-drugs-may-aggravate-coronavirus-infection https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/anti-inflammat... >French authorities have warned that widely used over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs may worsen the coronavirus. >The country’s health minister, Olivier Véran, who is a qualified doctor and neurologist, tweeted on Saturday: “The taking of anti-inflammatories [ibuprofen, cortisone … ] could be a factor in aggravating the infection. In case of fever, take paracetamol. If you are already taking anti-inflammatory drugs, ask your doctor’s advice.” This is HN right? I'm sure when you find an ImportError you know how to look things up on SO, how come people have trouble transferring this very simple knowledge-learning process to other domains?
    - deleted 7y ago
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    - guerrilla 7y ago
      > If any official source, regardless of country, recommends to abstain from ibuprofen I would simply like to know. It's headline news at the moment. You could just check. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/anti-inflammatory-drugs-may-aggravate-coronavirus-infection https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/anti-inflammat...
      - exdsq 7y ago
        The reason it's headline news at the moment is because some minister tweeted about the lancet letter this thread is talking about. It's a letter that's not gone through peer review which definitely shouldn't be taken as an official source! Numerous doctors on Twitter have come out and said we shouldn't listen to it too. Examples: https://twitter.com/notdred/status/1238806682458882049 https://twitter.com/notdred/status/1238806682458882049 https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1238946937916682241 https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/12389469379166822...
  - exdsq 7y ago
    If you're a medical professional and you've seen numerous papers or reports coming in that ibuprofen is a factor in the severity of Covid-19, why do you need to use a throw away account? Why can't you say where this information has come from? I've seen this topic shot down by doctors on Twitter - a throw away account quoting "primary sources" is unlikely to convince many of us! Can you expand with something a bit more concrete? For example, where are these guidelines that are saying not to us ibuprofen?
  - fragmede 7y ago
    It's unclear if English is your first language or not, but in case there is confusion resulting from this, quotation marks around a word is sometimes used to indicate sarcasm. In this context, it could be read that you don't believe that Covid-19 is at all serious - that the effects are "no worse than the flu". I don't know if you believe that, or if that is your intention, but there are some that are claiming this pandemic is a 'media hoax'. As you can imagine, that is a very emotionally expensive viewpoint to have to fight, especially when it's an at-risk loved one who is making that claim.
- himinlomax 7y ago
  It's already considered unsafe to take NSAIDs when suffering from influenza. In fact it's even been hypothesized that the Spanish flu pandemic was so bad because of widespread use of (the new) aspirin.
geofft 7y ago
> In related news, there have been cases of "severe" forms of Covid-19 among young people with no antecedents, all of them having taken ibuprofen. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here - are you claiming that all young people with severe cases of COVID-19 (including, for instance, 33-year-old Wenliang Li) took ibuprofen? Or simply that there exists a small group of people such that all people in that group took ibuprofen, and there are also other young people with severe cases who did not? Given that standard advice for young people (who are expected not to have severe cases) is to take fever-reducing medication like ibuprofen, I feel like we need a lot more information here before we can turn this correlation into causation.
- throwawayy477 7y ago
  I don't know what happened to Wenliang Li. What I know is that there have been reports of severe cases among young people without antecedents or pre-existing pathologies where I live and the common thread was that they took ibuprofen. In parallel, there are papers/preprints popping left and right suggesting that ibuprofen's side effects may worsen the symptoms of covid-19. Just google things, it's not hard to find. >Given that standard advice for young people (who are expected not to have severe cases) is to take fever-reducing medication like ibuprofen, I feel like we need a lot more information here before we can turn this correlation into causation. There's other fever-reducing medication that doesn't involve anti-inflammation action. Paracetamol is fine.
sbuttgereit 7y ago
This is precisely the sort of comment that not only makes social networking a medium with nearly no real value, but actually dangerous. The commentator comes here with some assumptions, perhaps some hearsay, and an emotional attachment to their position and make the statement as though it's fact. In this comment, you know what's missing? Actual knowledge, actual reasoning, and actual facts to back up the his/her claims. Perhaps worse, there are some facts (Ibuprofen suppresses some immune system responses to infection) which are used to draw unsubstantiated conclusions about the commentator's opinions (Ibuprofen can cause severe forms of Covid-19 in young people). From where did this "related news" come from? On what rational basis do you draw the conclusion that an across-the-board recommendation not to take Ibuprofen is warranted? How does that trump other factors that may be at play? What I really worry about though is how many people will read the comment I'm responding to and go on to post elsewhere, "in related news...", with a similar air of self-certainly and casting of opinions as facts. In other contexts of high emotion, people get lynched because of this sort of social media posting, people may cause themselves harm because of this kind of posting. By the way, the commentator may actually be right... but there is nothing in the comment to make me believe that his/her being right would be anything more than coincidence. I'll leave with the personal observation that this community is suppose to be made up of "the smart ones"; which we ourselves so often confidently believe to be true that we all too frequently think we should be able to engineer society and solve all its ills. If there is any one ponder-able to take away from reading Hacker News on regular basis, it's how decidedly average even "the smart ones" can be on any given topic.
- deleted 7y ago
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- ohiovr 7y ago
  tylonol is safer than ibuprofen if you have covid19. But you don't have to believe me as I read and don't make bibliographies in all of my posts. But I will make an exception for you. https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/anti-inflammatory-drugs-may-aggravate-coronavirus-infection https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/anti-inflammat...
  - 7y ago
Engineering-MD 7y ago
Inflammatory response is not the immune system. Both are intertwined but this should not be misread to say they are the same thing. Although I don’t disagree with your statement. There is possible reason against and no evidence that it (or paracetamol for that matter) improves outcomes.

neuronic 7y ago

Why are you putting severe in quotation marks? What makes you feel qualified to give medical advice on an Internet forum? There might be negatives to taking ibuprofen in relation to COVID-19, but so far no official guidelines exist. Only internet stories. Responsible institutes have not handed out such advice, nowhere.

throwawayy477 7y ago
> Why are you putting severe in quotation marks? Because I don't know the official terminology. >What makes you feel qualified to give medical advice on an Internet forum? Because of where I work I have been given "primary sources", but of course you are free to not believe me. This is my own sentiment, feel free to look things up yourself. > no official guidelines exist. Only internet stories. Not in the US, maybe, but such guidelines definitely exist where I live. Again, you do you
- neuronic 7y ago
  If any official source, regardless of country, recommends to abstain from ibuprofen I would simply like to know. I neither live in the US nor think that scientists and medical personnel in other country are less educated or trained. I think it's about distinguishing important information from stuff people randomly write online because a non-peer reviewed study made a hypothesis. The goal is for everyone around the globe to be as safe as possible and misinformation in the context of medical advice is not helpful. Of course it's better not to take ibuprofen, in any case. But some people may rely on it or other NSAIDs.
  - throwawayy477 7y ago
    First hit on google "coronavirus ibuprofen" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/anti-inflammatory-drugs-may-aggravate-coronavirus-infection https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/anti-inflammat... >French authorities have warned that widely used over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs may worsen the coronavirus. >The country’s health minister, Olivier Véran, who is a qualified doctor and neurologist, tweeted on Saturday: “The taking of anti-inflammatories [ibuprofen, cortisone … ] could be a factor in aggravating the infection. In case of fever, take paracetamol. If you are already taking anti-inflammatory drugs, ask your doctor’s advice.” This is HN right? I'm sure when you find an ImportError you know how to look things up on SO, how come people have trouble transferring this very simple knowledge-learning process to other domains?
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - guerrilla 7y ago
    > If any official source, regardless of country, recommends to abstain from ibuprofen I would simply like to know. It's headline news at the moment. You could just check. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/anti-inflammatory-drugs-may-aggravate-coronavirus-infection https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/anti-inflammat...
    - exdsq 7y ago
      The reason it's headline news at the moment is because some minister tweeted about the lancet letter this thread is talking about. It's a letter that's not gone through peer review which definitely shouldn't be taken as an official source! Numerous doctors on Twitter have come out and said we shouldn't listen to it too. Examples: https://twitter.com/notdred/status/1238806682458882049 https://twitter.com/notdred/status/1238806682458882049 https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1238946937916682241 https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/12389469379166822...
- exdsq 7y ago
  If you're a medical professional and you've seen numerous papers or reports coming in that ibuprofen is a factor in the severity of Covid-19, why do you need to use a throw away account? Why can't you say where this information has come from? I've seen this topic shot down by doctors on Twitter - a throw away account quoting "primary sources" is unlikely to convince many of us! Can you expand with something a bit more concrete? For example, where are these guidelines that are saying not to us ibuprofen?
- fragmede 7y ago
  It's unclear if English is your first language or not, but in case there is confusion resulting from this, quotation marks around a word is sometimes used to indicate sarcasm. In this context, it could be read that you don't believe that Covid-19 is at all serious - that the effects are "no worse than the flu". I don't know if you believe that, or if that is your intention, but there are some that are claiming this pandemic is a 'media hoax'. As you can imagine, that is a very emotionally expensive viewpoint to have to fight, especially when it's an at-risk loved one who is making that claim.
himinlomax 7y ago
It's already considered unsafe to take NSAIDs when suffering from influenza. In fact it's even been hypothesized that the Spanish flu pandemic was so bad because of widespread use of (the new) aspirin.

geofft 7y ago

> In related news, there have been cases of "severe" forms of Covid-19 among young people with no antecedents, all of them having taken ibuprofen. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here - are you claiming that all young people with severe cases of COVID-19 (including, for instance, 33-year-old Wenliang Li) took ibuprofen? Or simply that there exists a small group of people such that all people in that group took ibuprofen, and there are also other young people with severe cases who did not? Given that standard advice for young people (who are expected not to have severe cases) is to take fever-reducing medication like ibuprofen, I feel like we need a lot more information here before we can turn this correlation into causation.

throwawayy477 7y ago
I don't know what happened to Wenliang Li. What I know is that there have been reports of severe cases among young people without antecedents or pre-existing pathologies where I live and the common thread was that they took ibuprofen. In parallel, there are papers/preprints popping left and right suggesting that ibuprofen's side effects may worsen the symptoms of covid-19. Just google things, it's not hard to find. >Given that standard advice for young people (who are expected not to have severe cases) is to take fever-reducing medication like ibuprofen, I feel like we need a lot more information here before we can turn this correlation into causation. There's other fever-reducing medication that doesn't involve anti-inflammation action. Paracetamol is fine.

sbuttgereit 7y ago

This is precisely the sort of comment that not only makes social networking a medium with nearly no real value, but actually dangerous. The commentator comes here with some assumptions, perhaps some hearsay, and an emotional attachment to their position and make the statement as though it's fact. In this comment, you know what's missing? Actual knowledge, actual reasoning, and actual facts to back up the his/her claims. Perhaps worse, there are some facts (Ibuprofen suppresses some immune system responses to infection) which are used to draw unsubstantiated conclusions about the commentator's opinions (Ibuprofen can cause severe forms of Covid-19 in young people). From where did this "related news" come from? On what rational basis do you draw the conclusion that an across-the-board recommendation not to take Ibuprofen is warranted? How does that trump other factors that may be at play? What I really worry about though is how many people will read the comment I'm responding to and go on to post elsewhere, "in related news...", with a similar air of self-certainly and casting of opinions as facts. In other contexts of high emotion, people get lynched because of this sort of social media posting, people may cause themselves harm because of this kind of posting. By the way, the commentator may actually be right... but there is nothing in the comment to make me believe that his/her being right would be anything more than coincidence. I'll leave with the personal observation that this community is suppose to be made up of "the smart ones"; which we ourselves so often confidently believe to be true that we all too frequently think we should be able to engineer society and solve all its ills. If there is any one ponder-able to take away from reading Hacker News on regular basis, it's how decidedly average even "the smart ones" can be on any given topic.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ohiovr 7y ago
tylonol is safer than ibuprofen if you have covid19. But you don't have to believe me as I read and don't make bibliographies in all of my posts. But I will make an exception for you. https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/anti-inflammatory-drugs-may-aggravate-coronavirus-infection https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/anti-inflammat...
- 7y ago

Engineering-MD 7y ago

Inflammatory response is not the immune system. Both are intertwined but this should not be misread to say they are the same thing. Although I don’t disagree with your statement. There is possible reason against and no evidence that it (or paracetamol for that matter) improves outcomes.