People have been urged to be cautious of relying on anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen for pain relief due to the impact they can have on kidney function.<\/p>\n
Those with a higher risk of kidney disease, such as diabetics or people with high blood pressure, should be particularly careful, according to Kidney Care UK and the National Pharmacy Association (NPA).<\/p>\n
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen, naproxen and diclofenac can increase blood pressure and damage blood vessels inside the kidneys.<\/p>\n
Subscribe free to our weekly newsletter<\/a> for exclusive and original coverage from ITV News. Direct to your inbox every Friday morning. <\/p>\n Olivier Picard, chair of the NPA, said that medicines “have the power to harm as well as to heal”. <\/p>\n \u201cAlthough NSAIDs, such as ibuprofen, are effective and safe medicines, patients should be aware of their impact \u2013 particularly if a patient is at increased risk of developing kidney disease \u2013 and consider alternative medication where appropriate.<\/p>\n \u201cIf a patient has concerns about their usage of NSAIDs, they should speak to their pharmacist who can advise them.”<\/p>\n Around 7.2 million people in the UK are living with some form of chronic kidney disease, which usually has no symptoms in the early stages.<\/p>\n Kidney Care UK also estimates that about one million people are undiagnosed.<\/p>\n Those at an increased risk of developing the condition include: diabetics; people with high blood pressure; people with a family history of kidney disease; and those from black and south Asian communities.<\/p>\n Fiona Loud, policy director at Kidney Care UK, said: \u201cKidney disease can happen to anyone at any time, and can have a devastating impact on your life, relationships, finances as well as your physical and mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n Of the 294,999 people who completed the charity\u2019s kidney health checker between October 2024 and March 2026, almost a quarter (24%) said they regularly used over-the-counter medication for pain relief.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can lose up to 90% of your kidney function without realising, so it\u2019s important to be aware of the signs to look out for, to know if you might be at increased risk, and what to do if you are concerned,” Ms Loud said. \u201cIt only takes a few minutes to complete our online kidney health checker<\/a> to see if you might be at increased risk.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you have any concerns, you can raise these with your GP or have a chat with your local pharmacist.\u201d<\/p>\n From Westminster to Washington DC – our political experts are across all the latest key talking points. Listen to the latest episode below…\u00a0 <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People have been urged to be cautious of relying on anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen for pain relief…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[102,6591,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-471229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-health","tag-medication","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}