A new study revealed on Wednesday about the side effects of any medicine found that it might not be the result of its active compounds. The inactive ingredients present in a pill can also trigger intolerances or drug reactions in the human body.
A medicine’s inactive ingredients can include sugars, dyes, and even foods, which may cause allergies, according to doctors. However, how much of a threat these ingredients could pose is still under study, according to Carlo Traverso, a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital plus an assistant professor in Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT.
The researchers studied various drugs that are taken across the US, including simvastatin, gabapentin, and amoxicillin. Also, they had gone through the medical literature for studying various cases of people who might have suffered from those filler constituents.
They found cases of intolerance and medication-related allergy associated with 38 different ingredients, including glucose, peanut oil, and lactose. These possible allergens or irritants were found in nearly all of the medications they reviewed. On an individual basis, the risk would depend heavily on the amount of a triggering ingredient in that pill, the sensitivity towards these contents, and lastly the amount of drug intake the person is having.
Traverso told Gizmodo, “For a lot of these [ingredients], it’s probably low enough to say no. But for someone with severe lactose intolerance and who’s taking a large number of medications, for example, it very well could be enough to cause serious symptoms.”
Traverso and his team said, “Many more people report delayed reactions to foods and other triggers, such as lactose intolerance.”
Labels and doctors do explicitly warn people about possible allergic reactions of peanut in their drugs. More than half of the samples contained at least one FODMAP (a group of sugars and carbs) that has been related to irritable bowel syndrome and other digestive problems.
As a precautionary measure, patients can check the labels provided by a pharmacy alongside the drug or the publicly available Pillbox database, which is run by the federal government.
Traverso is looking forward to his team’s efforts to generate databases that are more detailed and labeling while advising the pharmaceutical companies to study and manufacture more substitutes of their active as well as inactive ingredients.
Their research is also expected to focus on the probability of people actually getting sick from inactive ingredients, particularly in groups who often take more than one drug at a time. Apparently, in the near future, they plan to uncover another way that will educate people more easily about the content present in their drugs. The gastroenterologist added, “We’re not saying that everyone should stop taking these medications. But people with an allergy or intolerance should definitely have the opportunity to find out if they have to worry about certain medications.”
