How does painkillers damage your stomach
Stomach releases gastric juice for the digestion of food in stomach. This gastric juice contains an enzyme, called pepsin and HCl, which is required to activate pepsin, which digests proteins. Our stomach also contains a large number of proteins, but remains safe from this digestive juice.
Actually on the inner side of stomach, there is a thick lining of mucus. That do not allow the gastric juice to come in contact with stomach walls. This mucus layer keeps on shedding and regenerating again accordingly. This regeneration of mucosa is controlled by COX-1 . So that stomach may remain protected against gastric juice.
As we know that painkillers (NSAIDs) treat pain and inflammation by blocking COX. Where it is important to know that two main types of COX are COX-1 and COX-2, COX-2 is responsible for developing inflammation in response to any injury or infection, while COX-1 is responsible for normal physiology, like mucosal regeneration, platelet aggregation etc.
When painkillers like ibuprofen and naproxen, which block both, COX-1 and COX-2 and hence block regeneration of mucosa in stomach, so that mucus lining become thin and incapable of protecting stomach walls from acid and digestive enzyme. Which corrodes the stomach walls and can even make ulcers.
It is very important to have the pain or inflammation management under the observation of qualified medical experts, to avoid such complications. So it is very important to avoid self medication to manage pain and inflammation.
