For those not recognizing the title, I know it as paracetamol (or tylenol in movies).
The article reports on several studies of various sizes where, indeed, people all took a pill (some placebo and some not) and those with the real thing rate activities as less risky or underestimate the risk of the balloon bursting by adding one more pump. Of course, the article mentions the ongoing pandemic where those on this drug may perceive meeting people to be less risky.
Another thing I found interesting in the article is that "nearly 25 percent of the population in the U.S. [takes] acetaminophen each week". I wouldn't know where to find numbers for other countries, I'm curious if it follows a similar pattern as opioid usage (or even the "opioid epidemic", as Wikipedia's article is titled) in the USA versus other countries, but regardless, this stuns me.
I too come from a country where this is called paracetamol, and here too, over the counter usage is very common. I'm surprised more people are not worried about the alcohol interaction.
In the UK, the NHS advice for anything mildly painful is "take paracetamol or ibuprofen" (e.g. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/common-cold/), so they must judge the risk at typical doses as very low.
In Germany they always (n=2) act surprised when I ask for more than a single box. I don't even take it myself, my girlfriend uses one dose (usually 2x0.5g before going to sleep) maybe every tenth day or so; I myself might use it once a year. But the stuff lasts for years and I don't fancy running out or not having some with me when I (or someone near me) needs it, so we just buy it in bulk and replace when empty or after the expiry has sufficiently passed. I get a lecture from the apothecary every time. Does nobody else buy ahead, especially in the pandemic?
My mother always pushed ibuprofen for menstrual issues, though I suspect that will still be a portion of this 25%. Chronic pain of some type is an issue for most anyone over 40.
It’s ignorance. I legitimately had no idea until I looked into it. Others I’ve talked with have said they had no idea. Ibuprofen makes me feel like I’ve been poisoned if I take too much or on an empty stomach. So acetaminophen was just what I took. (And when I had significant sleeping problems and was working three jobs so it really mattered if I slept or not, I took a PM version which was also not great.) Now I generally don’t take pain medication even if I’m pretty severely hurting, but if I do I stuff my face and take ibuprofen.
I do that, believing it’s acceptable risk, but I’m probably very poorly informed. My mental model is that it’s technically dangerous if I take an order of magnitude too much, while drinking heavily. Since this goes for most things in life I dismissed any qualms long ago.
Always preferred acetaminophen to ibuprofen; it feels more like “the real thing”. Maybe it’s the de-stressing effects alluded to in TFA.
> A Scottish woman with a previously unreported genetic mutation (dubbed FAAH-OUT) in her FAAH gene with resultant elevated anandamide levels was reported in 2019 to be immune to anxiety, unable to experience fear, and insensitive to pain. The frequent burns and cuts she suffered due to her hypoalgesia healed quicker than average [1]
Acetaminophen can elevate anandamide levels [2]. It would be interesting to know if the altered perception of risk could be related to the "immune to anxiety" effect experienced above.
My wife is like this in BOTH regards and I have been baffled by her for over a decade! I tell everyone, I have never met ANYONE like her, I honestly thought she was completely unique.
By all accounts she seems to be utterly immune to both physical pain and does not experience fear.
(1) She was a glass blower in college and would regularly get large burns that did not seem to bother her at all. She has multiple tattoos that she says caused no discomfort, gave birth to both our children without any drugs and to this day says it caused her no pain. She is aware of things happening but they do not bother her. Not in a bad way, I have often told people, she does not feel anything.
(2) She can say anything to anyone, anywhere and feel nothing like anxiety. This has also baffled me but I NEVER would have thought the two were somehow connected. I've asked many times if she ever gets nervous or anxious talking to people and says she does not and it is clearly true. In ten years I've never seen her cry or so much as tear up. When we lived on a farm she was our go to for any slaughtering, she sliced our goats throat without even wincing and I saw her once stand up to a 1,000+ pound charging heifer without thinking twice and made nothing of it.
It blows my mind but makes so much sense that this could be a single DNA mutation! Hopefully it is one 23 And Me can check for!
As some who is diagnosed with both hyperesthesia [1] and anxiety disorder, it's really funny how your wife is the opposite of my experience. It reminds me of Murakami's Wind-Up Bird Chronicles we experience the same things and lead similar lives yet our senses can be so different to a point where something fatally painful can be so pleasurable to others.
[1] My skin is hypersensitive to pain, to the point sometimes it's very painful to put on clothes. Usually it's manageable with wearing large clothes, but it's worse if I haven't had enough sleep or some allergies (or salty food etc) are causing inflammation.
My wife is for all intents and purposes the opposite of yours and always complains about me and our kids being afraid of nothing.
Her life, and so in some respects also mine, revolves around overcoming her own fears, so it's really interesting to read your opposite experience, thanks for sharing!
Even more fascinating: nobody here in the comments on the most skeptical site I know has pointed out that the article fails to provide even a hint of the degree to which it alters those perceptions. Is it 1%? 10%? 30%? 80%?
How to measure the degree? You've wrote percentages as an example, how they should be understood? The frequency of altered behavior? But there are tons of different factors altering behavior, as personal so situational factors. They somehow also should be measured.
I would be much more skeptical, if they provided measurements outside of ordinal scale of measurement[1]. One can compare two setups on basis less/greater, but not to measure them in absolute scale.
I've been reading a bunch of medical studies recently and I've found the same thing painfully often. Wow, this study is p<0.01, that's amazing! How much did the substance alter the measurement, though? Never mentioned.
I've always had near zero empathy for anyone who isn't a close friend or family member, and I have very high pain tolerance, to the point of outright ignoring minor wounds on a regular basis and then finding them later (sounds edgy, actually majorly annoying finding unexpected blood stains on clothing or furniture, or realizing I have an eyesore of a bruise somewhere).
Paracetamol apparently might modulate the endogenous cannabinoid system in the brain through its metabolite, AM404, which appears to inhibit the reuptake of the endogenous cannabinoid/vanilloid anandamide by neurons, making it more available to reduce pain. AM404 also appears to be able to directly activate the TRPV1 (older name: vanilloid receptor), which also inhibits pain signals in the brain.[24]
I would love to permanently down-regulate my anxiety. I do not find it a useful emotion. Standard anxiolytics have helped a fair amount, but I’d love to just kill it off as an emotion.
I ask myself: Could any pf these findings be conflated with psychopathy? And or are any of the anecdotal evidence provided here by commenters actually not due do acetaminophem/paracetamol, but rather psycopathic personality distortions? I am genuinely curious. We will never know of course, at least not about my second point. The first can be tested with more rigprous science.
It's usually prescribed specifically for fever, not just for any pain.
Could this be why so many people (myself included) report feeling a sense of wanting to live a more proactive life when sick with a fever?
You'd think it would just be because you're feeling a sense of contrast from your usual more energized state and want to avoid wasting energy on unproductive things once you get it back, but could it actually be because the Acetominophen reduces our overall sense of anxiety?
The article talks about how there have been studies that show it dampens all emotions, but to feel more sure about long-term efforts, you don't strictly need to be emotionally charged or inspired, you just need to be less anxious about the potential failure of such efforts.
> It's usually prescribed specifically for fever, not just for any pain.
It is regularly prescribed (alone or as part of a compounded drug with opioids) for post surgical pain; as I understand it's the most effective common non-narcotic painkiller for traumatic injury, but not as effective as NSAIDs (or steroids) for inflammatory pain, because it doesn't specifically target inflammation.
> report feeling a sense of wanting to live a more proactive life when sick with a fever?
There is (very weak) theory that, given that viruses want to spread to more hosts, and given that certain infections like toxoplasma or rabies can change the hosts behaviours, that a virus wants us to get out more and be more socialable. The urge to live a life when we feel when sick with fever could be part of the infection changing our behaviour to make it spread!
Viruses and other things exploit our behaviours of sneezing and coughing to spread after all, so why not increase the chances some more.
There was one study done that showed that those who were just injected with the flu vaccine (as a safer way than actually infecting people with the flu) that they became more gregarious and went out socialising more.
The science is pretty weak and can be explained that those who had the vaccine felt more protected and invulnerable, so it does not prove anything.
The researchers theorised that sexually transmitted diseases may also want to spread. Its possible that being infected by STDs could make you more promiscuous therfore.
There's no studies done on covid infections and change of host behaviour. Suggesting that people might not be fully free in their decisions when pre-symptomatic and infectious would mainly be not helpful, useful and also dangerous.
To me, the idea that viruses could affect our mental state is so out there its similar to the idea that the bacteria in our guts could affect our mental state 20 years ago.
Readit News
The article reports on several studies of various sizes where, indeed, people all took a pill (some placebo and some not) and those with the real thing rate activities as less risky or underestimate the risk of the balloon bursting by adding one more pump. Of course, the article mentions the ongoing pandemic where those on this drug may perceive meeting people to be less risky.
Another thing I found interesting in the article is that "nearly 25 percent of the population in the U.S. [takes] acetaminophen each week". I wouldn't know where to find numbers for other countries, I'm curious if it follows a similar pattern as opioid usage (or even the "opioid epidemic", as Wikipedia's article is titled) in the USA versus other countries, but regardless, this stuns me.
my guess: half of half the population takes them 4 days every month, eg menstruation pains.
Yes well, it will. Do not take it on an empty stomach. IANA doctor, but if one prescribed you ibuprofen it would say 'with a meal'.
That's crazy. I take it maybe once or twice a year. And I will generally take ibuprofen in preference to acetaminophen.
The idea of taking an OTC drug that often is bizarre to me.
Always preferred acetaminophen to ibuprofen; it feels more like “the real thing”. Maybe it’s the de-stressing effects alluded to in TFA.
> A Scottish woman with a previously unreported genetic mutation (dubbed FAAH-OUT) in her FAAH gene with resultant elevated anandamide levels was reported in 2019 to be immune to anxiety, unable to experience fear, and insensitive to pain. The frequent burns and cuts she suffered due to her hypoalgesia healed quicker than average [1]
Acetaminophen can elevate anandamide levels [2]. It would be interesting to know if the altered perception of risk could be related to the "immune to anxiety" effect experienced above.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid_amide_hydrolase#Fun...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anandamide#Synthesis_and_degra...
By all accounts she seems to be utterly immune to both physical pain and does not experience fear.
(1) She was a glass blower in college and would regularly get large burns that did not seem to bother her at all. She has multiple tattoos that she says caused no discomfort, gave birth to both our children without any drugs and to this day says it caused her no pain. She is aware of things happening but they do not bother her. Not in a bad way, I have often told people, she does not feel anything.
(2) She can say anything to anyone, anywhere and feel nothing like anxiety. This has also baffled me but I NEVER would have thought the two were somehow connected. I've asked many times if she ever gets nervous or anxious talking to people and says she does not and it is clearly true. In ten years I've never seen her cry or so much as tear up. When we lived on a farm she was our go to for any slaughtering, she sliced our goats throat without even wincing and I saw her once stand up to a 1,000+ pound charging heifer without thinking twice and made nothing of it.
It blows my mind but makes so much sense that this could be a single DNA mutation! Hopefully it is one 23 And Me can check for!
[1] My skin is hypersensitive to pain, to the point sometimes it's very painful to put on clothes. Usually it's manageable with wearing large clothes, but it's worse if I haven't had enough sleep or some allergies (or salty food etc) are causing inflammation.
Her life, and so in some respects also mine, revolves around overcoming her own fears, so it's really interesting to read your opposite experience, thanks for sharing!
Deleted Comment
Deleted Comment
Even more fascinating: nobody here in the comments on the most skeptical site I know has pointed out that the article fails to provide even a hint of the degree to which it alters those perceptions. Is it 1%? 10%? 30%? 80%?
Kind of an important detail.
I would be much more skeptical, if they provided measurements outside of ordinal scale of measurement[1]. One can compare two setups on basis less/greater, but not to measure them in absolute scale.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_measurement
I've always had near zero empathy for anyone who isn't a close friend or family member, and I have very high pain tolerance, to the point of outright ignoring minor wounds on a regular basis and then finding them later (sounds edgy, actually majorly annoying finding unexpected blood stains on clothing or furniture, or realizing I have an eyesore of a bruise somewhere).
Paracetamol apparently might modulate the endogenous cannabinoid system in the brain through its metabolite, AM404, which appears to inhibit the reuptake of the endogenous cannabinoid/vanilloid anandamide by neurons, making it more available to reduce pain. AM404 also appears to be able to directly activate the TRPV1 (older name: vanilloid receptor), which also inhibits pain signals in the brain.[24]
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7958920_Acute_Marij...
Could this be why so many people (myself included) report feeling a sense of wanting to live a more proactive life when sick with a fever?
You'd think it would just be because you're feeling a sense of contrast from your usual more energized state and want to avoid wasting energy on unproductive things once you get it back, but could it actually be because the Acetominophen reduces our overall sense of anxiety?
The article talks about how there have been studies that show it dampens all emotions, but to feel more sure about long-term efforts, you don't strictly need to be emotionally charged or inspired, you just need to be less anxious about the potential failure of such efforts.
It is regularly prescribed (alone or as part of a compounded drug with opioids) for post surgical pain; as I understand it's the most effective common non-narcotic painkiller for traumatic injury, but not as effective as NSAIDs (or steroids) for inflammatory pain, because it doesn't specifically target inflammation.
There is (very weak) theory that, given that viruses want to spread to more hosts, and given that certain infections like toxoplasma or rabies can change the hosts behaviours, that a virus wants us to get out more and be more socialable. The urge to live a life when we feel when sick with fever could be part of the infection changing our behaviour to make it spread!
Viruses and other things exploit our behaviours of sneezing and coughing to spread after all, so why not increase the chances some more.
There was one study done that showed that those who were just injected with the flu vaccine (as a safer way than actually infecting people with the flu) that they became more gregarious and went out socialising more.
The science is pretty weak and can be explained that those who had the vaccine felt more protected and invulnerable, so it does not prove anything.
The researchers theorised that sexually transmitted diseases may also want to spread. Its possible that being infected by STDs could make you more promiscuous therfore.
There's no studies done on covid infections and change of host behaviour. Suggesting that people might not be fully free in their decisions when pre-symptomatic and infectious would mainly be not helpful, useful and also dangerous.
To me, the idea that viruses could affect our mental state is so out there its similar to the idea that the bacteria in our guts could affect our mental state 20 years ago.