Do OTC (Over the Counter) medications for cough, cold, flu and fever have a negative effect on the digestive system? What do you recommend parents give their children for these conditions?
Over the counter drugs for colds do have a negative effect on the digestive system and the immune system. Apart from the drug itself they contain sweeteners, flavours, fillers, binders and other ingredients, which will do you or your child no good. What do I recommend instead? I cover this subject in the chapter on ear infections in the GAPS book – I recommend plain aspirin. Aspirin is one the safest medications known to man. However, in the last few decades the pharmaceutical patent has run out on aspirin, so it became unprofitable for the manufacturers. So, they needed to replace it with new drugs which have fresh patent (paracetamol, ibuprofen, etc.). In order to convince the public and the medical profession to replace aspirin (one of the most trusted and proven medications on Earth) with their new drugs, they had to vilify aspirin. So aspirin was attached to a very rare condition with a scary list of symptoms, called Reye’s syndrome: the symptoms range from vomiting and neurologic
Over the counter drugs for colds do have a negative effect on the digestive system and the immune system. Apart from the drug itself they contain sweeteners, flavours, fillers, binders and other ingredients, which will do you or your child no good. What do I recommend instead? I cover this subject in the chapter on ear infections in the GAPS book – I recommend plain aspirin. Aspirin is one the safest medications known to man. However, in the last few decades the pharmaceutical patent has run out on aspirin, so it became unprofitable for the manufacturers. So, they needed to replace it with new drugs which have fresh patent (paracetamol, ibuprofen, etc.). In order to convince the public and the medical profession to replace aspirin (one of the most trusted and proven medications on Earth) with their new drugs, they had to vilify aspirin. So aspirin was attached to a very rare condition with a scary list of symptoms, called Reye’s syndrome: the symptoms range from vomiting and neurologic
