University Officials Issue Warning on Acetaminophen Overdoses Amid Flu Season

‘Most people don’t realize they’re at risk of overusing acetaminophen because they’re unaware so many medicines contain this ingredient,’ an official said.

Extra Strength Tylenol is displayed in a drugstore in Washington on July 5, 2006. Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images

Officials with Rutgers University in New Jersey have warned that there has been an increase in poison control-related calls for overdoses of acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, to treat flu-like symptoms.

“Cold and flu season is the time of year when we see an uptick in calls at the Poison Control Center related to the overuse of acetaminophen to alleviate flu-like symptoms,” Diane Calello, with Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, said in a statement on Jan. 10. “Most people don’t realize they’re at risk of overusing acetaminophen because they’re unaware so many medicines contain this ingredient. There are more than 600 products on the market that contain acetaminophen.”

The university, in a news release, said it is issuing the warning following several instances in which its medical center had to assist New Jersey residents who took too much of the drug to treat their symptoms. The patients under treatment, it added, are receiving care to “prevent liver failure and death.”

The officials added that accidental overdoses can lead to major health problems, including liver toxicity, damage, and failure.

People are advised not to ingest more than 4,000 milligrams of acetaminophen, called paracetamol in the UK and other countries, each day from all medicines combined.

Users also should not take several doses of acetaminophen too close together to mitigate the chance of overdosing or seeing liver damage, according to poison control officials.

“Overdoing it is much easier than most realize, and the consequences of taking too much acetaminophen can happen quickly and lead to a life-threatening emergency like severe liver damage and liver failure, kidney failure and death,” Bruce Ruck, the head of the New Jersey Poison Control Center, said in a statement.

Calello added that “most people” are not cognizant of the harm that acetaminophen overuse can pose and that users should check the active ingredient of any medication they are taking.

According to the National Institutes of Health, administration of N-acetylcysteine, a commonly marketed supplement also known as NAC, is the main therapy for acetaminophen poisoning. It is “almost 100 percent effective” if it is given within eight hours of ingesting acetaminophen, the federal health agency said. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved NAC to treat acetaminophen overdoses.

Acetaminophen is the most common drug ingredient in over-the-counter medications in the United States, according to the Consumer Healthcare Products Association.

Rutgers University issued the warning as about 40 states reported high or very high levels of respiratory illnesses last week, the latest government data show.

“Seasonal influenza activity continues to increase and is elevated across most of the country,” the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a notice earlier this week.

The most recent CDC hospitalization data and other indicators show that the influenza virus is trending higher than the other germs, CDC researcher Carrie Reed said earlier this month. Several seasonal flu strains are driving cases, with no dominant one, she said.

So far this season, the CDC estimates, there have been at least 5.3 million flu illnesses, 63,000 hospitalizations, and 2,700 deaths—including at least 11 children.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.