Painkiller acetaminophen also reduces empathy for others’ pain
A new study suggests that the popular painkiller acetaminophen reduces pain but it may also decrease empathy for both the physical and social aches that other people experience.
For example, researchers at The Ohio State University foundthat when participants who took acetaminophen learned about the misfortunes of others, they thought these individuals experienced less pain and suffering, when compared to those who took no painkiller.
“These findings suggest other people’s pain doesn’t seem as big of a deal to you when you’ve taken acetaminophen,” said Dominik Mischkowski, co-author of the study and a former Ph.D. student at Ohio State, now at the National Institutes of Health.“Acetaminophen can reduce empathy as well as serve as a painkiller.”
The results were published online in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.
Acetaminophen – the main ingredient in the painkiller Tylenol – is the most common drug ingredient in the United States, found in more than 600 medicines, according to theConsumer Healthcare Products Association, a trade group.
Each week about 23% of American adults (about 52 million people) use a medicine containing acetaminophen, the CHPA reports.
An earlier study also found that acetaminophen also blunts positive emotions like joy.
The researchers conducted two experiments, the first involving 80 college students. At the beginning, half the students drank a liquid containing 1,000 mg of acetaminophen, while the other half drank a placebo solution that contained no drug. The students didn’t know which group they were in.
They were then asked to read eight short scenarios in which someone suffered some sort of physical or emotional pain.Participants rated the pain each person in the scenarios experienced from 1 (no pain at all) to 5 (worst possible pain).Overall, the participants who took acetaminophen rated the pain of the people in the scenarios to be less severe than did those who took the placebo.
A second experiment involved 114 college students.In one part of the experiment, the participants received four two-second blasts of white noise that ranged from 75 to 105 decibels. They then rated the noise blasts on a scale of 1 (not unpleasant at all) to 10 (extremely unpleasant).They were then asked to imagine how much pain the same noise blasts would cause in another anonymous study participant.
Results showed that, when compared to those who took the placebo, participants who took acetaminophen rated the noise blasts as less unpleasant for themselves – and also thought they would be less unpleasant for others.
A 2004 study scanned the brains of people as they were experiencing pain and while they were imagining other people feeling the same pain. Those results showed that the same part of the brain was activated in both cases.
“In light of those results, it is understandable why using Tylenol to reduce your pain may also reduce your ability to feel other people’s pain as well,” he said.
The researchers are continuing to study how acetaminophen may affect people’s emotions and behavior, Way said. They are also beginning to study another common pain reliever – ibuprofen – to see if it has similar results.
Source: News OSU
Category: Features, Pharmaceuticals
