| Title: | Association of regular paracetamol or ibuprofen usage with the risk of incident kidney stones |
| Journal: | British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology |
| Published: | 1 Dec 2025 |
| Pubmed: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41321218/ |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1002/bcp.70342 |
| URL: | https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/bcp.70342 |
Publication 16813
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Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Kidney stones affect approximately 10% of adults globally, with increasing prevalence and significant associated morbidity. While ibuprofen and paracetamol are widely used over-the-counter analgesics, their associations with kidney stone risk remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate whether regular use of paracetamol or ibuprofen is associated with incident kidney stones.</p>
METHODS: A prospective cohort analysis was conducted including 483 692 participants from the UK Biobank without prior kidney stones. Regular use of paracetamol or ibuprofen was defined as use on most days of the week in the past 4 weeks. The study outcome was incident kidney stones. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs), adjusting for demographic, lifestyle, genetic and clinical factors.</p>
RESULTS: During a median follow-up of 13.6 years, 6613 (1.4%) incident kidney stones cases were recorded. Regular paracetamol usage was significantly associated with increased stone risk (adjusted HR, 1.17, 95%CI: 1.10-1.23), with a stronger effect in non-diabetic individuals (vs. with diabetes, P interaction = 0.006). Regular ibuprofen usage showed no significant association (adjusted HR, 1.05, 95%CI: 0.98-1.13). Sensitivity analyses and propensity score matching supported these findings. Analysis of changes in usage showed that initiating or consistently using paracetamol was linked to significantly higher risk, while consistent ibuprofen users also showed an elevated risk.</p>
CONCLUSIONS: Regular paracetamol usage, but not ibuprofen usage, was associated with an increased risk of incident kidney stones. These findings suggest that caution is warranted regarding regular paracetamol usage, particularly in individuals at risk for kidney stones.</p>
11 Authors
- Yiting Wu
- Yiwei Zhang
- Hao Xiang
- Chun Zhou
- Ziliang Ye
- Sisi Yang
- Yanjun Zhang
- Xiaoqin Gan
- Yu Huang
- Yuanyuan Zhang
- Xianhui Qin
1 Application
| Application ID | Title |
|---|---|
| 73201 | Identification of residual risks of non-infectious chronic diseases |
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