How Does Pain Medication Affect Your Liver?

Overview

Objectives/Goals To determine if and what effects the commonly used pain relievers, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and aspirin have on beef liver cells. Methods/Materials Materials: beef liver from the grocery store, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, aspirin, saline (.9% NaCl), test tubes, beakers, pipettes, microscope, microscope slides, slide covers, methylene blue, test tube holder, camera, computer. Methods: I mixed each of the medicines with saline, and let it sit for a day to dissolve at room temperature. Then I mixed small pieces of beef liver with the saline to make a cell solution. Next I placed the medicine solution and cells in a test tube and let it sit for ten days. After 10 days I looked at the solution under a microscope at 40X using methylene blue stain. I looked at the damage to the cells. Then I took pictures of the cells. Results After performing my experiment, I saw that aspirin barely damages the liver cells compared to acetaminophen and ibuprofen. The acetaminophen and ibuprofen damage the cell's membrane with the ibuprofen doing the most damage. Conclusions/Discussion After completing my experiment, I would not recommend taking acetaminophen or ibuprofen because it damages the liver cells. I would recommend taking aspirin since it does little damage to the cells.

Competition history

• CSEF 2011 Pharmacology/ Toxicology · Entry J1703

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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