[HN Gopher] A social analgesic? Acetaminophen (paracetamol) redu...
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A social analgesic? Acetaminophen (paracetamol) reduces positive
empathy
Author : amichail
Score : 81 points
Date : 2022-05-04 17:18 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
| jpmattia wrote:
| Psych study with n=114. Given the reproducibility crisis in
| psychology, I'll wait for the replication.
| raddan wrote:
| Sure, do that. But also:
|
| > The power analysis used a power criterion of (1 - b) = 0.80,
| which indicated that a mean cell size of n = 54 was sufficient
| to replicate significant effects of acetaminophen.
|
| The question is not whether n=114 is "large enough" because
| that question, by itself, does not make sense. The question is
| whether n=114 is "large enough for the observed effect." Given
| that the p-values for the "personal pleasure" and "empathetic
| feelings" measures are under 0.001, the answer is "yes,"
| potential methodological issues notwithstanding.
| [deleted]
| teaearlgrey_hot wrote:
| Disagree from experience. I find it far more likely that they
| considered how to skew the p-values low enough to where they
| become significant. "Personal pleasure" & "Empathetic
| feelings" do NOT sound like terms which correlate to
| reproducibility to me.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > "Personal pleasure" & "Empathetic feelings" do NOT sound
| like terms which correlate to reproducibility to me.
|
| All studies that use terms like that have a section that
| explains how they are measuring it, how other studies have
| used the same measure and how that measure itself is tested
| for reproducibility and accuracy.
| ngvrnd wrote:
| doesn't necessarily mean they are ACTUALLY measuring
| anything real. just sayin'
| HWR_14 wrote:
| So without training in the field, having read about the
| specific example or anything else, you can say the entire
| study is trash?
| amelius wrote:
| Scientist: Hey, that's odd ...
|
| HN reader: I'll wait for the replication.
| FastMonkey wrote:
| All undergrads from a single university also. Just based on the
| social development of people as they go through undergrad, I'd
| guess that the variance in behavioural change before and after
| treatment is fairly high whether they're treated or not.
| snovv_crash wrote:
| Just like a lot of pharma papers need a `... in mice`
| appended to their titles, a lot of psych papers need `... in
| undergrads` appended to theirs.
| arcticbull wrote:
| There's been a few over the years.
|
| [1] 2016: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5015806/
|
| [2] 2015:
| https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095679761557036...
|
| [3] 2012:
| http://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/broken-hea...
| plsbenice34 wrote:
| Seems like every time now, when I read a medical study,
| especially psychiatry-related, I'm shocked that it could even
| be published. I have no training in the field, so nobody would
| take me seriously and I even doubt myself, but the study
| designs just seem so poor
| mattkrause wrote:
| I don't think you should sneer at a triple-digit sample size
| that's justified with a power analysis based on their previous
| work.
|
| I agree that you'd want to see replications before making any
| major decisions--these effects are often finnicky--but this
| seems to me like a reasonable-sized step forward.
| simulate-me wrote:
| They also had a prior justification for running this
| experiment based on known effects of Tylenol on the brain.
| madrox wrote:
| I tend to agree. While I think the sample size is fine, the way
| perceived positivity and perceived pleasure were measured seems
| pretty subjective in a way I find hard to generalize.
|
| The paper does seem awfully suggestive, though. Worthy of more
| exploration for sure.
| throw149102 wrote:
| It would be interesting to see a study on whether Tylenol reduces
| empathy in people who are sick/in chronic pain. My guess would be
| that Tylenol increases empathy in these situations, despite the
| general effect it has in reducing empathy. It's hard to empathize
| with others when you're in pain yourself.
|
| Brings about a good question - if you have a headache, and you
| take Tylenol, do you become more or less empathetic? If the
| answer is you become _more_ empathetic, that indicates that
| instead of Tylenol being the bad guy, we should try to reduce the
| prevalence of headaches (or pains that cause people to take
| Tylenol) in general.
| SemanticStrengh wrote:
| Is it a pharmacologically relevant acetyl donor btw?
| mabbo wrote:
| Acetaminophen (paracetamol) is also associated with reductions in
| 'social pain'.[0]
|
| > Thus, acetaminophen reduces behavioral and neural responses
| associated with the pain of social rejection, demonstrating
| substantial overlap between social and physical pain.
|
| It's a fascinating idea that social pain and physical pain are so
| strongly related. That depression can be viewed as a form of
| chronic pain, like a knee that still hurts long after the injury
| has healed.
|
| And perhaps then positive empathy has something to do with
| literally feeling the social pain of others- blunt your ability
| to feel social pain and you aren't as affected by it.
|
| [0]https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095679761037474..
| .
| inter_netuser wrote:
| That's been known for a long time, possibly centuries.
|
| morphine was used to treat depression as late as last century,
| and probably remains a common folk remedy even today.
| bink wrote:
| Morphine has more effects than just killing pain, however. It
| also provides a euphoric feeling. It's more interesting if a
| drug that was until now only known for removing physical pain
| can also provide relief for social pain.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Well yes, there's definitely a reason there are problems with
| opiate addictions.
|
| A differentiation between legal and illegal drugs is the
| legal ones poison you before they make you feel particularly
| amazing, the illegal ones poison you after. Take way too much
| acetaminophen and you get liver failure before you feel
| euphoria.
|
| There are arguments to be made that many illegal drugs are
| safer at effective doses but have risks of abuse not present
| in the drugs that poison you before abuse is fun.
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| Depending on "who" you listen to Wild Lettuce is either no
| good or its better than morphine without the addiction.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactuca_virosa
| https://erowid.org/plants/lactuca/lactuca.shtml
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactucarium#History
|
| So with man made chemicals they tend to not break down as
| easily, you see this with man made pesticides like
| pyrethrin's yet the pyrethrin's in Chrysanthemum do break
| down easily, organophosphates (nerve agents at the right
| dose) are another group used to dip Sheep in, but might
| show up in trace amounts in lanolin based Vit D3
| supplements.
| CTDOCodebases wrote:
| Aren't emotions just thoughts with a linked physical sensation?
|
| Why is it so fascinating?
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Acetaminophen is best avoided in my opinion. Long term liver
| damage is a major issue, particularly in conjunction with
| alcohol. There's also some evidence it's linked to cancer, and
| why take the risk? Ibuprofen (Advil) is probably much preferable
| in most cases, though definitely not for long-term chronic pain.
|
| Long-term chronic pain is one condition where opiates actually
| make sense, although studies demonstrate that using cannabis +
| opiates allows the opiate dosage to be kept below the addiction
| threshold while providing equivalent relief.
| robocat wrote:
| > There's also some evidence it's linked to cancer
|
| Isn't everything? I would love to see a site that was more
| about the relative risks of cancer. Or even better, that
| queries us for our behaviours and then suggests where to spend
| our efforts to improve our quality of life, based on well
| supported research.
| toast0 wrote:
| WARNING: Reading this comment is known to the State of
| California to cause cancer and birth defects or other
| reproductive harm.
| geocrasher wrote:
| The moral of the story is this: Stay out of California.
| _everything_ causes cancer there.
| arcticbull wrote:
| plane_with_red_dots.jpeg
| donclark wrote:
| scotty79 wrote:
| Conservative views don't come from lack of empathy. They come
| from anxiety about your safety.
|
| You can make liberal more conservative by priming him to think
| about his own vulnerability and death and you can make
| conservative more liberal by priming him to think of himself as
| invulnerable superhero
| nsdfg425sf wrote:
| donclark wrote:
| Paranoid safety peeps eh?
|
| I would still like to see if there is any data correlation.
| [deleted]
| spfzero wrote:
| You have to suspect that the underlying reason people are taking
| a pain reliever in the first place also makes them less
| empathetic to others. That could even be a larger effect than the
| one found in the study.
|
| Understand that's controlled for in the OA, just mentioning
| another aspect in real-life situations.
| moron4hire wrote:
| Are you saying that you think people who want relief from their
| own pain are people who have reduced empathy toward others?
| scotty79 wrote:
| It might be that just being in pain yourself can lower your
| empathy. For example your body could raise pain threshold a
| bit so it's easier for you to suffer your pain which could
| cause empathetic pain not to register at all.
| Tylenol wrote:
| When I can't sleep because my mind is racing, or I am anxious
| about something, I take 1000mg of acetaminophen, the stress is
| relieved, and within an hour I am asleep.
|
| When bad things happen to me, or I'm anxious about something, I
| take 1000mg of acetaminophen and the stress is quickly blunted.
|
| Acetaminophen is a miracle drug for psychological pain, and it is
| very safe if used occasionally in small doses (as described
| above).
| robocat wrote:
| I take an anti-histamine. They don't usually make me drowsy,
| but if I am wake at 3AM and feel too awake, the anti-histamine
| is usually enough to push me back to sleep (although it isn't
| immediate).
| 37ef_ced3 wrote:
| Antihistamines like Benadryl are anticholinergics. They are
| harmful to the brain and everyone should avoid them. In
| contrast acetaminophen is universally considered to be safe
| for people with a normal liver.
| maccard wrote:
| > it is very safe if used occasionally in small doses (as
| described above).
|
| Define occasionally, and small doses. Paracetamol/acetaminophen
| is widely considered to be dangerous for a few reasons -
| sustained use of "safe" dosages has been shown to have a huge
| effect on liver failure [0] - it's regularly found in other
| painkiller, cold & flu, decongestant, and antihistamines. -
| It's surprisingly ineffective for a large number of people for
| lots of different kinds of pain - The dosage that can cause
| critical liver damage is _dangerously_ close to the therapeutic
| dose.
|
| [0] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40264-012-0013-7
| 37ef_ced3 wrote:
| Commenter was explicit about dosage and pretty clear about
| frequency. A single dose of 1,000 milligrams in a 24 hour
| period is indeed small and universally considered to be safe
| for people with a normal liver.
| brimble wrote:
| I use weed for both these cases--shutting my mind up so I can
| sleep and/or dulling physical pain in case of illness so I can
| sleep, if it doesn't rise to the level of needing/being-able-
| to-get serious painkillers, plus (at lower doses, and far less
| often) for reducing anxiety during waking hours.
|
| Works great, wish I'd started years ago. Leaves me much better-
| rested in the morning than other prescription sleep aids I've
| tried. On nights when I know I'll have a nice 9ish hours
| uninterrupted, I pair it with a little melatonin to keep me
| from waking up completely if I stir a little after the weed's
| worn off, and it's the best damn sleep of my life.
|
| A+++++ would recommend. Screw you for lying to me, William S.
| Sessions.
| Timpy wrote:
| I don't think 1000mg is a small dose, I'm not a doctor but that
| seems like an extra-strength portion to me
| daveoc64 wrote:
| The standard size of a Paracetamol (as it is known in the
| UK[0]) tablet in the UK is 500mg.
|
| The normal dose is 2 tablets (i.e. 1000mg in total).
|
| Wait at least 4 hours between doses.
|
| Don't have more than 4 doses in a 24-hour period.
|
| Paracetamol is one of the most commonly used medicines in the
| UK.
|
| [0] - https://www.nhs.uk/medicines/paracetamol-for-adults/
| [deleted]
| arcticbull wrote:
| Acetaminophen has an active dose very close to the lethal
| dose, and is the leading cause of acute liver failure in the
| United States. While the daily limit is 4000mg, 1000mg is not
| un-common in formulations like extra-strength Tylenol.
| mattkrause wrote:
| The "standard dosage unit" in Canada is 325 mg (for adults),
| with extra-strength pills containing 500 or 650 mg.
|
| 1000 mg is pushing the daily limit (4000 mg, but it's got a
| halflife of ~6 hrs, so...)
| User23 wrote:
| Another drug you might want to consider is Cebocap[1]. It has a
| very safe side-effect profile, it's safe for pregnant and
| nursing women, and it has been clinically proven to effectively
| treat a wide variety of ailments.
|
| [1] https://www.drugs.com/imprints/forest-707-17216.html
| motohagiography wrote:
| Sounds like a hack for people with social anxiety as well.
| mromanuk wrote:
| Recently I read about using paracetamol for social anxiety.
| There is a connection.
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| Paracetamol and Acetaminophen are the same drug - much of the
| world calls it Paracetamol. Different takes on the same
| chemical name, though I can't remember the reason for the
| difference. I looked it up some years ago when I moved from
| the US to Europe.
| bencollier49 wrote:
| Well yes, if you're a fan of hypogonadism.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5044981/
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5789927/
| danachow wrote:
| That's quite a leap. One of those is for ibuprofen, which has
| virtually no similarities with acetaminophen and the first
| one is for a xenograft model - there are tremendous problems
| with getting carried away with that result as you seem to
| have done.
| rybosworld wrote:
| That second link seems to suggest the effect in adults is
| very minimal.
| nrdgrrrl wrote:
| midislack wrote:
| Empathy must be stored in the liver which Tylenol also destroys.
| ipnon wrote:
| Pain is psychosomatic. A broken heart physically hurts, and a
| broken bone will ruin your mood. A similar result was found in
| parents with opiate abuse disorder, they were less likely to
| notice negative emotional states when shown pictures of children
| in various moods. I don't think this result is concerning except
| for people who are taking NSAIDs on a daily basis for long
| periods of time.
| threads2 wrote:
| It also reduces compensatory affirmation:
|
| The Common Pain of Surrealism and Death: Acetaminophen Reduces
| Compensatory Affirmation Following Meaning Threats
|
| https://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~heine/docs/2013%20Acetaminophen%2...
|
| > They ... watched a 4-min clip from the short film Rabbits,
| created by David Lynch (2002)
|
| > acetaminophen interrupts the typical compensatory responses to
| meaning threats ...
|
| > acetaminophen has more far-reaching psychological consequences
| than previously realized
|
| Though not a huge n, n=121.
| pagutierrezn wrote:
| 2016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14683173
|
| 2020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25540870
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Macroexpanded:
|
| _In study, acetaminophen makes risky moves seem less
| dangerous_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25540870 -
| Dec 2020 (133 comments)
|
| _Acetaminophen reduces empathy for pain (2016)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14683173 - July 2017 (93
| comments)
|
| Others:
|
| _Prenatal acetaminophen increases autism and ADHD risk 20%_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27362768 - June 2021 (20
| comments)
|
| _Acetaminophen exposure in pregnancy linked to higher risk of
| ADHD, autism: study_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21415078 - Nov 2019 (39
| comments)
|
| _Acetaminophen use in pregnancy linked to child 's behavioral
| problems_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12293675 - Aug
| 2016 (84 comments)
|
| _Acetaminophen may hinder the brain 's error-correction
| mechanisms_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11465452 -
| April 2016 (56 comments)
|
| _Acetaminophen and the War on Drugs (2009)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2211599 - Feb 2011 (58
| comments)
| geocrasher wrote:
| This explains why some people are so stupid it hurts.
| mikkergp wrote:
| a "potent" physical painkiller .
|
| Does anyone know if the word potent here is meant to be
| scientific or emotional? It feels emotional, the dictionary
| definition is "having great power, influence, or effect." which
| seems weird to jump out the gate with such a subjective word for
| an over the counter painkiller.
| dvh wrote:
| I was once taking out trash in the middle of the night and I've
| overheard neighbor's conversation: "What's the strongest thing
| you have here for headache and if you say Tylenol I'm gonna
| kill you!"
| dkh wrote:
| Another study linking these. The prospect of humans in some
| places maybe experiencing different things and making different
| decisions than they would've because for a couple generations
| everyone has been taking a ton of Tylenol and it reduced
| everyone's collective empathy... that is terrifying to me.
| ovulationkit wrote:
| rapjr9 wrote:
| So perhaps acetaminophen (Tylenol) is responsible for the
| increasing political divide in the USA and in the world? People
| literally care less about each other because their empathy is
| being blunted. How long does the effect last? Days at least if I
| remember previous reports correctly. There are a LOT of people
| using acetaminophen often. If the effect lasted a week would just
| one pill a week make you a less caring person? This seems like it
| could be a really big deal.
| HNHatesUsers wrote:
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