In this video, we speak to Dean Willis, Lecturer in Neuroscience, Physiology & Pharmacology at University College London about ibuprofen and other anti-inflammatory drugs and their effect on our body.
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Transcript:
Stories have been circulating online about the use of ibuprofen in the treatment of coronavirus. But what is ibuprofen and how does it work?
Ibuprofen is a class of what’s known as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories. These are drugs that help to reduce inflammation. Inflammation is the body’s immune system’s response to an irritant, such as a virus or bacteria.
And ibuprofen acts to block your body’s production of certain natural substances that cause inflammation, which in turn can help to relieve pain.
To learn more about inflammation and what happens when it does wrong, we spoke to Dean Willis, Lecturer in Neuroscience, Physiology & Pharmacology at University College London
Inflammation is absolutely required for the continued well-being of an individual. We require an optimal immune reaction, both innate and adaptive and an optimal inflammatory response.
The problem is, is inflammation itself can also cause damage when inappropriate. And we see this characterised in many inflammatory-type diseases, a classical example is things like rheumatoid arthritis, where we see inflammation associated with the joints initially, in asthma, where it’s in places like the lung.
So for most people inflammation is a necessary process our body uses to deal with infection, or injury, but for some people, inflammation can cause problems. So do we use anti-inflammatory drugs to treat these people?
We can inhibit inflammation but the downside is that we always have some degree of increased susceptibility to infections and this is the major problem.
So with something like COVID-19, you may want to increase the activity of the immune system, or anti-viral system to try and clear the virus, however at the same time, an overactivation of your immune system, leading to more inflammation, can actually be quite serious, and it’s a delicate balance which, to be honest, it’s difficult to address.
For the time being, there is currently no strong evidence that ibuprofen can make coronavirus (COVID-19) worse. But until we have more information, the UK Government advise taking paracetamol to treat the symptoms of coronavirus, unless a doctor has said paracetamol is not suitable.
