Inactive ingredients of medicines can cause allergies

New York: Be careful when taking medications because a new study suggests that some ingredients added to pills to improve shelf life can cause allergies or unwanted reactions. The study found that more than 90% of all oral medications tested contained at least one ingredient, including lactose, peanut oil, gluten and chemical dyes that could cause problems gastrointestinal symptoms and difficulties in breathing with difficulty in sensitive persons.

These components are added to improve taste, shelf life, absorption and other features of a pill, said researchers at the Mbadachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States.

"There are hundreds of different versions of pills or capsules that administer the same medication using a different combination of inactive ingredients," said Daniel Reker, of the university.

For the study, published in Science Translational Medicine, the team badyzed data on inactive ingredients from more than 42,000 oral medications containing more than 350,000 inactive ingredients. The results showed a total of 38 inactive ingredients that cause allergic symptoms after oral exposure. About 45% of the drugs contained lactose, nearly 33% contained a food coloring and 0.08% peanut oil.

For some drugs, such as progesterone, there are few alternatives that do not contain this inactive ingredient.

"Although we call these ingredients" inactive ", in many cases they are not, the doses may be low, but we do not know what is the threshold at which individuals can react in the majority of cases" , the researchers noted. Precision care and the role of regulation and legislation are essential for the labeling of drugs containing an ingredient that may cause an adverse reaction, the team suggested.