Healthy alternative to parcetemol?

[southeast-isher]

Thank you Zoe - i will try that.

[Keaniebean]

This is a link to some natural remedies that featured in a series called Grow your Own drugs one of which you might be interested in.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/tv/features/growyo ... ode5.shtml

If you have a look at the Willow Granita (2nd recipe down) that is supposedly a paracetamol/aspirin alternative, I haven't tried this myself yet, but I probably will at some point. I hope this might help though

[southeast-isher]

This is a link to some natural remedies that featured in a series called Grow your Own drugs one of which you might be interested in.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/tv/features/growyo ... ode5.shtml

If you have a look at the Willow Granita (2nd recipe down) that is supposedly a paracetamol/aspirin alternative, I haven't tried this myself yet, but I probably will at some point. I hope this might help though

It sounds very interesting, thank you.

Medicine: The leaves and bark of the willow tree have been mentioned in ancient texts from Assyria, Sumer and Egypt[8] as a remedy for aches and fever,[9] and the Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates wrote about its medicinal properties in the 5th century BC. Native Americans across the American continent relied on it as a staple of their medical treatments. This is because willows contain salicin, a substance that chemically resembles aspirin. It temporarily relieves headache, stomachache, and other body pain. Salicin is metabolized in to salicylic acid in the human body, which is a precursor of aspirin.[10] In 1763 its medicinal properties were observed by the Reverend Edward Stone in England. He notified the Royal Society who published his findings. The active extract of the bark, called salicin, was isolated to its crystalline form in 1828 by Henri Leroux, a French pharmacist, and Raffaele Piria, an Italian chemist, who then succeeded in separating out the compound in its pure state. In 1897 Felix Hoffmann created a synthetically altered version of salicin (in his case derived from the Spiraea plant), which caused less digestive upset than pure salicylic acid. The new drug, formally Acetylsalicylic acid, was named Aspirin by Hoffmann's employer Bayer AG. This gave rise to the hugely important class of drugs known as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).

[southeast-isher]

Scientific question though, would salicin have same side effects like ones mentioned earlier in thread as asprin?

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Scientific question though, would salicin have same side effects like ones mentioned earlier in thread as asprin?

I would have thought that it would have similar side effects to that of aspirin. The stomach irritation from aspirin arises because some of the aspirin is hydrolysed (broken down) by the stomach acids before it is wholly absorbed. This yields a small amount of salicylic acid which attacks the stomach lining.

Looking at the chemical structure of salicin, I would imagine it would behave in the same way, though I have to say both online references and the old fashioned paper-based ones I have are irritatingly non-specific on the matter.

Also, I don't imagine that salicin would necessarily work as well as aspirin in relieving pain associated with swelling, nor would it have the same blood-thinning properties: one of the modes of operation of aspirin would be absent from salicin and it is this one that makes aspirin particularly effective in dealing with these.

On the other hand, I think salicin would be metabolised more slowly, so low-level pain relief from willow bark extract might last a fair bit longer.

All the above to be taken with a pinch of salt because they are just conclusions I've drawn from looking at the structures of the two molecules plus I'm a chemist, not a pharmacologist

[southeast-isher]

Thanks Riff-Raff, just the kind of answer i was after, thanks :-)

[demi]

paracetamol is safe as long as you stay within the recommended doze. if you are having persistant headaches you should see your doctor.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Thanks Riff-Raff, just the kind of answer i was after, thanks :-)

Pleasure.