An Inserm study confirms that paracetamol and aspirin are endocrine disruptors. A worrying finding for athletes who are heavy consumers of these drugs.
Cans, canned goods, cosmetics, and now painkillers, endocrine disruptors are definitely everywhere. A team of researchers from Inserm has indeed demonstrated that aspirin and paracetamol inhibited the production of testosterone in adults. This is a worrying finding, in particular for athletes who are heavy consumers of these drugs intended to reduce pain.
The Inserm team behind this work had already participated in a previous collection of epidemiological data which suggested the existence of a link between the use of analgesics during pregnancy and cryptorchidism in the fetus (absence of descent of ‘one or two testicles in the scrotum). Researchers had then started a lot of work in animals to assess the endocrine risk of analgesics. And so far, all the results obtained converged towards a confirmation of the endocrine disrupting nature of these drugs. “Four independent cohort studies demonstrate an association between analgesics and the risk of cryptorchidism. And our work in rats shows a drop in testosterone production, or even a feminization of newborn male rats, ”describes Bernard Jégou, the research program manager.
Risks from 4g per day
But, to go even further, and confirm these results, the researchers conducted research in humans, from the fetal stage to the adult stage. They thus exposed testicular explants of adult men to different doses of paracetamol, aspirin or indomethacin for at least 24 hours, and the consequences observed are clear. “At concentrations equivalent to those found in plasma when these molecules are taken, each of them disrupts the production of steroid hormones and other factors necessary for masculinization and fertility,” explains the researcher. In practice, this is manifested by a drop in the production of testosterone but also prostaglandins or even insulin-like factor 3, a factor involved in the descent of the testes.
And the researcher continues, “some high-level athletes use and abuse it, especially for preventive purposes. In addition to the potential risks to fertility or to health in general, these products which cause a drop in testosterone production could therefore be counterproductive in terms of performance ”. On the other hand, the occasional consumer does not put himself in danger. Indeed, these deleterious effects would have been observed only from a dose of 4g of painkiller per day, that is to say the maximum authorized dose.
Finally, Bernard Jégou “recalls that these are some of the most widely used drugs in the world. The conduct of this work is therefore a public health issue ”. Indeed, according to the Health Insurance, the Doliprane (paracetamol) still occupies in 2012 the 5th rank of the most prescribed drugs in amounts.
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