The thing about Panadol Cold and Flu

Pseudoephedrine typically found in flu medications is no longer available ‘over-the-counter’ in first-world...

LAHORE:

Despite having been on medication for several weeks, Mr R was primed. It almost seemed like time had slowed down. From his last dose midnight onwards (the last time till 7 am), he would not be stopped. Alternating between text, documentaries and back, somewhere in the last part of the night he had sat down to have a meal. Not even the latter would deny him some intellectual stimulus however, and so Mr R had tuned into where he had previously left off on a course webcast from UC Berkeley’s department of psychology: Drugs and the Brain.

As he journeyed through his meal he listened to the instructor, the beloved David Presti, speak of a pharmacological agent that had gained notoriety as a performance-enhancing substance used by athletes. The name of the substance was strangely, strikingly familiar — ‘Pseudo-effederin.’

Pseudoephedrine…

Then, jumping out of his seat, Mr R reached for the conglomerate of his flu medications to scan for what had been in front of him all along. With the sound of the Fajr azaan approaching in the background, Mr R, who had likened himself to Batman, began to feel like he was perhaps better described an Ullu.

What?

There is a class of pharmacological drugs known as ‘sympathomimetic agents’. These drugs act to ‘mimic’ the effect of key neurotransmitters in the human nervous system that lead to the activation of what is known as the ‘flight or fight response’ or, to the scientific community, sympathetic nervous system activity. Such is pseudoephedrine, an agent that is combined with ingredients such as the well-known paracetamol for the purpose of ‘cold and flu’ variations. And it is highly effective in relieving symptoms of nasal congestion, an effect which essentially follows from the aforementioned.

The downside

Unfortunately, along with a range of side effects arising from over-stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system — high blood pressure, stroke, anxiety — across the medical community in the first-world, pseudoephedrine has become (or more correctly, became, before its use was discarded) recognised for its ability to cause sleeplessness. In going to sleep, human beings rely on the ‘rest and digest’ response, which results from the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system.

For the vast majority of physiological responses in human beings, the two — sympathetic and parasympathetic activity — are antagonistic. In other words, stimulation of one leads to the shutdown of the other.

Thus, one can imagine what happens when one happily ingests several 60 mg tablets of pseudoephedrine in a single day. A study at the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Birmingham established that the drug is as potent that a dose of ‘2.5 mg/kg of body weight’ (for an adult, that’s less than three tablets) significantly improved the time required for athletes to complete a 1500-m marathon.

But that’s just the half of it. Pseudoephedrine in the last ten years has become a regulated drug in the United States and many other countries, no longer available ‘over-the-counter.’ As a matter of fact, part of this is due to it having become a staple diet of drug-addicts. A recent article in The New York Times entitled How to Kill the Meth Monster, details the full account.

For our purposes though, if you’re suffering from a case of cold and flu and would like some relief, just remember to do a cost-benefit analysis before you resort to a Panadol C&F. If you’re hoping for a restful night of sleep afterwards, it’s likely best to not risk telling your body you’re getting ready to run a marathon in the Olympics.

You know, lest you end up being an Ullu.

The author is the head of Scholars by Profession, a local research-initiative. Find out more at www.facebook.com/scholarsbyprofession/info

Published in The Express Tribune, February 4^th, 2013.               

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