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American Morning
House Call: Study Shows Pain Relievers Could Lead to Ulcer Problems
Aired May 20, 2003 - 07:50 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Stomach this today: A new study shows that over-the-counter pain relievers millions of people are taking could be causing a lot more problems than once thought.
Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen at CNN Center is making our "House Call" today.
What gives -- Elizabeth? Good morning there.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill.
Bill, doctors have always known that drugs like ibuprofen and naproxen can cause gastrointestinal problems, but they always wondered exactly how common is it that they would cause these problems. And now, a new study says it may be more common than thought.
In fact, the study says that those kinds of problems that drugs like Advil and Aleve, which are ibuprofen and naproxen, lead to 40 percent more ulcers than expected from studies that had previously been done.
Let's take a look specifically at this study. In this study, they looked at 20 patients who took drugs, like Advil and Aleve. And when they did imaging of their intestines, they found that 71 percent had small ulcers. That is much higher than would have been expected.
Then they looked at 20 patients who were not taking these types of drugs. In other words, they took Tylenol or they took nothing. And 10 percent of these patients had small ulcers.
Now, this is not the last word on this issue. This is not a definitive study. You can see it was only 40 people. However, it definitely raises the question as to whether or not people who take these drugs, especially if they take them at relatively high doses over relatively long periods of time, if perhaps that may be causing gastrointestinal problems -- Bill.
HEMMER: Which raises the issue of these 40 people in this survey, what was the dosage for each individual? Was there an average? Was there a high end or a low end? How do we know if two is bad or eight is bad?
COHEN: Right. And that's what we asked the doctor, and they said that because of the way this study was done, they can't give us exact dosages. What they said is that these were arthritis patients who were taking the normal regiment for arthritis patients. So, they said they couldn't give us an exact dosage, and that is a problem with this study is that we can't give an exact number. But they said it's just whatever an arthritis patient would usually take to treat his or her disease.
HEMMER: Got it. A quick tease on next hour, what's coming up then?
COHEN: Well, what we'll be talking about is making your hands look younger. We've all heard about facelifts. Well, how about hand lifts? Well, they don't actually call it that. They call it "hand rejuvenation." And we'll look at this plastic surgery procedure to make hands look younger.
HEMMER: We got a lot of e-mails on that question yesterday. Thanks, Elizabeth. See you next hour.
COHEN: See you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
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Aired May 20, 2003 - 07:50 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Stomach this today: A new study shows that over-the-counter pain relievers millions of people are taking could be causing a lot more problems than once thought.
Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen at CNN Center is making our "House Call" today.
What gives -- Elizabeth? Good morning there.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill.
Bill, doctors have always known that drugs like ibuprofen and naproxen can cause gastrointestinal problems, but they always wondered exactly how common is it that they would cause these problems. And now, a new study says it may be more common than thought.
In fact, the study says that those kinds of problems that drugs like Advil and Aleve, which are ibuprofen and naproxen, lead to 40 percent more ulcers than expected from studies that had previously been done.
Let's take a look specifically at this study. In this study, they looked at 20 patients who took drugs, like Advil and Aleve. And when they did imaging of their intestines, they found that 71 percent had small ulcers. That is much higher than would have been expected.
Then they looked at 20 patients who were not taking these types of drugs. In other words, they took Tylenol or they took nothing. And 10 percent of these patients had small ulcers.
Now, this is not the last word on this issue. This is not a definitive study. You can see it was only 40 people. However, it definitely raises the question as to whether or not people who take these drugs, especially if they take them at relatively high doses over relatively long periods of time, if perhaps that may be causing gastrointestinal problems -- Bill.
HEMMER: Which raises the issue of these 40 people in this survey, what was the dosage for each individual? Was there an average? Was there a high end or a low end? How do we know if two is bad or eight is bad?
COHEN: Right. And that's what we asked the doctor, and they said that because of the way this study was done, they can't give us exact dosages. What they said is that these were arthritis patients who were taking the normal regiment for arthritis patients. So, they said they couldn't give us an exact dosage, and that is a problem with this study is that we can't give an exact number. But they said it's just whatever an arthritis patient would usually take to treat his or her disease.
HEMMER: Got it. A quick tease on next hour, what's coming up then?
COHEN: Well, what we'll be talking about is making your hands look younger. We've all heard about facelifts. Well, how about hand lifts? Well, they don't actually call it that. They call it "hand rejuvenation." And we'll look at this plastic surgery procedure to make hands look younger.
HEMMER: We got a lot of e-mails on that question yesterday. Thanks, Elizabeth. See you next hour.
COHEN: See you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
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