Researchers have discovered that medications that are frequently prescribed to the public contain ingredients that could potentially cause an allergic reaction.
Taste, absorption and shelf-life are some of the main reasons these components, known as 'inactive' ingredients, are added to pills. However, a new US study has found that almost 90 per cent of these medications contain one or more ingredients that could cause gastrointestinal symptoms or allergic reaction, especially for those who are sensitive. These ingredients include chemical dyes, lactose, peanut oil and gluten.
"When you're a clinician, the last thing you want to do is prescribe a medication that could cause an adverse reaction or allergic reaction in a patient," C Giovanni Traverso, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), told a news portal. Adding, "This project was inspired by a real-life incident where a patient with Celiac disease was prescribed a medication and the formulation of the pill they picked up from the pharmacy had gluten in it."
Traverso further explained: "We wanted to understand the problem and drill down to characterise the entire universe of inactive ingredients across thousands of drugs."
The team examined data on close to 42,052 oral medications that contained 354,597 inactive ingredients. While these ingredients have been said to be safe after tests, there is limited research on its impact on individuals who are more prone to allergies or intolerances.
"There are hundreds of different versions of pills or capsules that deliver the same medication using a different combination of inactive ingredients," Daniel Reker, a postdoctoral fellow at MIT, told a news portal. Adding,"This highlights how convoluted the possible choices of inactive ingredients are, but also suggests that there is a largely untapped opportunity today to specifically select the most appropriate version of a medication for a patient with unusual sensitivities."
Researchers have yet to determine how much of an ingredient triggers a bad reaction. "This pushes us to think about precision care and about the role for regulation and legislation when it comes to labelling medications that contain an ingredient that may cause an adverse reaction," Traverso told a news portal.
