Researchers from Ohio State University say that acetaminophen, the main ingredient in Tylenol, can change your mood. More than 50 million Americans use the pain reliever per week. CBS News medical contributor Dr. Holly Phillips joins “CBS This Morning” to discuss the findings.
A new study says acetaminophen has a surprising side effect every week 50 million americans take the pain reliever most people know is tylenol researchers at the ohio state university say it may change your mood as it relieves your headache dr. holly phillips is with us good morning good morning i was really surprised when i when i heard the headline of this study
Because who we all take tylenol pretty frequently what do we learn yeah actually one in five american sticks at every single week so you know what’s what i found fascinating about this study we’ve known for a while that in addition to relieving pain tylenol also mayblunt our negative emotions or our emotional pain this study took it a step further and said that
In addition to affecting negative emotions it may also affect positive feelings as well so what the researchers did they took – it was – a group of two small studies they gave participants a thousand milligrams of acetaminophen which is the active ingredient in tylenol and then they waited an hour and they show them a group of photographs the first photographs
Were happy photographs they should make you laugh or smile the other group was sad photographs they should make you feel uncomfortable or even cry what they found was that compared with people who took placebo those who had taken acetaminophen had a less strong emotional reaction across the board both to negative things and to positive why does it have that
Effect either well this study didn’t establish exactly what the cause is but we know that pain is not a local phenomenon right if you have pain in your knee it’s not just there it affects nerve nerve receptors there but then that lose – nerve tissue your central nervous system and parts of your brain that affect emotion but importantly that affect both positive
And negative emotions so if you might relieve negative feelings you also may relieve those positive feelings as well so any pain medication that has acetaminophen might have this kind of effect right that that’s right that’s sort of where this is headed again it’s very early research there is certainly if you take tylenol daily for or acetaminophen daily for your
Pain we wouldn’t want you to necessarily stop but it is a little bit of a red flag for people who take it every day we don’t want to want feelings of happiness are you supposed to do right now if you do take acetaminophen don’t necessarily change but there are of course other reasons to be careful with it right it’s a top the cause of liver failure and overdose
We need to try and minimize as much as you know how much we take and then we have to look at further research to see how big this effect is on our happiness anything good holly holly did that with a straight face you she said i’m not paying attention now continue what i’m talking about a blessin metaphor d this is what it would cut it about it brain dr. holly barn up thank you very much
Transcribed from video
Acetaminophen may dull emotions, study shows By CBS Mornings
