Paracetamol metabolism in Indian population.

To investigate the profile of paracetamol (CAS 103-90-2, Calpol) metabolism in Indian population and to compare with the profiles of studies conducted in other populations, a study was conducted in 100 healthy male human volunteers. After an overnight fast, the volunteers were administered an oral dose of 1 g of paracetamol, urine was collected up to 8 h and samples were analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography for the estimation of urinary recovery of paracetamol and its metabolites, i.e. sulphate, glucuronide, cysteine and mercapturate conjugates. 25.29 +/- 5.5 (mean +/- S.D.)% of sulphate conjugate, 60.55 +/- 8.5% of glucuronide conjugate, 5.05 +/- 2.1% of unchanged paracetamol, 2.76 +/- 2.4% of cysteine conjugate and 6.37 +/- 3.8% of mercapturate conjugate were recovered. The mean combined recovery of glutathione conjugates (9.13%) in Indians is found to be very high and is equal to that in Caucasians of Scotland (9.3%), which indicates that Indians are equally predisposed to hepatotoxicity as Caucasians.