Washington: If you are a frequent user of painkiller's, you may want to lower the use, as a new study has found that the commonly used pain reliever, acetaminophen, reduces both pain and pleasure.
Acetaminophen, the main ingredient in the over-the-counter pain reliever Tylenol, has been in use for more than 70 years in the United States, but this is the first time that the side effect has been documented.
In the study, participants who took acetaminophen reported less strong emotions when they saw both very pleasant and very disturbing photos, when compared to those who took placebos.
Lead author of the study Geoffrey Durso at the Ohio State University said that this meant that using Tylenol or similar products might have broader consequences than previously thought, and rather than just being a pain reliever, acetaminophen can be seen as an all-purpose emotion reliever.
Assistant professor Baldwin Way added that the results may also have an impact on psychological theory. An important question in psychological research is whether the same biochemical factors control how people react to both positive and negative events in their lives.
The results appear online in the journal Psychological Science.
