Mesalazine
One product on this shelf contains mesalazine: Asacol 400 mg tablets, an anti-inflammatory medicine that works directly on the bowel lining to treat Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn’s Disease.
Key points
- The active ingredient is also known as 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA), and its effect is thought to be local to the bowel lining rather than spread through the body.
- About 3% of patients in controlled studies developed an acute intolerance syndrome with abdominal pain, bloody diarrhoea and fever, symptoms that can be hard to tell apart from a disease flare.
- Do not take mesalazine if you are allergic to salicylates such as aspirin, or if you have severe kidney or liver problems.
How does Mesalazine work?
The exact way mesalazine reduces inflammation is not fully understood. It is thought to block the chemical signals that drive swelling in the bowel wall, and to calm the immune cells that gather at the site of active disease.
What matters most for someone taking it is where the medicine acts. The 400 mg tablet is designed for delayed release, so it passes through the stomach intact and delivers mesalazine to the inflamed bowel lining. Only about 28% of the dose is absorbed into the bloodstream, which is why the effect stays largely local. This makes mesalazine a useful option in Digestive Health for managing inflammatory bowel conditions.