The paracetamol debate

There is once again a newspaper article about impact of paracetamol on young children. It is not the first study that links early paracetamol to asthma or other long term health issues. My thoughts on this:

• We tend to use to many drugs. Well I am all for saving sanity of parents and other siblings by feeding pamol to screaming kids in the middle of the night, we in general reach for pamol (brand name for liquid paracetamol) more than we should. We found that giving lower dose, often half of what was stated often worked. From memory this depended on the child as each child has a different pain tolerance. So make sure you are using the minimum amount and remember pain in children is not normal. So look for other things you can do to reduce usage. 
• Just because use of paracetamol is linked with development of asthma, doesn't mean that it is causative. That is pamol may not cause asthma. It may mean kids who are susceptible to needing pamol are susceptible to asthma. I suspect that kids who are more sickly, thus needing pamol more, are more likely to develop asthma.

We need to realize that minor sickness point to bigger issues. So if you or your children are often sick, then you should find the missing part of the puzzle....... often this is either a decent supplement or significant changes in diet and food sources.