While acetaminophen is helping
you deal with your headache, it may also be making you more willing to take
risks, a new study suggests.
People
who took acetaminophen rated activities like "bungee jumping off a tall
bridge" and "speaking your mind about an unpopular issue in a meeting
at work" as less risky than people who took a placebo, researchers found.
Use of
the drug also led people to take more risks in an experiment where they could
earn rewards by inflating a virtual balloon on a computer: Sometimes they went
too far and the balloon popped.
"Acetaminophen
seems to make people feel less negative emotion when they consider risky
activities - they just don't feel as scared," said Baldwin Way, co-author
of the study and associate professor of psychology at The Ohio State
University.
"With
nearly 25 percent of the population in the U.S. taking acetaminophen each week,
reduced risk perceptions and increased risk-taking could have important effects
on society."
The
study extends a series of studies led by Way that have shown acetaminophen -
the main ingredient in the pain-reliever Tylenol and nearly 600 other medicines
- has psychological effects that most people don't consider when they take it.
Previous
research by Way and his colleagues has shown that acetaminophen reduces
positive and negative emotions, including hurt feelings, distress over
another's suffering and even your own joy.
Way
conducted the current study with Alexis Keaveney, a former doctoral student at
Ohio State, and Ellen Peters, a former professor at Ohio State who is now at
the University of Oregon. The study was published online in the journal Social
Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.
In one
study, 189 college students came to a lab and took either 1,000 mg of
acetaminophen (the recommended dosage for a headache) or a placebo that looked
the same. After waiting for the drug to take effect, the participants rated on
a scale of 1 to 7 how risky they thought various activities would be.
Results
showed that those under the influence of acetaminophen rated activities like
bungee jumping, walking home alone at night in an unsafe area of town, starting
a new career in your mid-30s, and taking a skydiving class as less risky than
those who took the placebo.
The
effects of acetaminophen on risk-taking were also tested in three separate
experimental studies.
Across
these studies, 545 undergraduate students took part in a task developed in 2002
that is often used by researchers to measure risk-taking behavior. Other
researchers have shown that taking more risk on this task predicted risky
behaviors outside the laboratory, including alcohol and drug use, driving
without a seatbelt and stealing.
In the
task, participants click a button on the computer to inflate a balloon on their
computer screen. Each time they inflate it they receive virtual money. They can
stop at any time and add the money to their "bank," and move on to
the next balloon. But there is risk involved.
"As
you're pumping the balloon, it is getting bigger and bigger on your computer
screen, and you're earning more money with each pump," Way said.
"But
as it gets bigger you have this decision to make: Should I keep pumping and see
if I can make more money, knowing that if it bursts I lose the money I had made
with that balloon?"
For
those who took the acetaminophen, the answer was: Keep on pumping. Results
showed that those on the drug pumped more times than those on the placebo and
had more burst balloons.
"If
you're risk-averse, you may pump a few times and then decide to cash out
because you don't want the balloon to burst and lose your money," he said.
"But
for those who are on acetaminophen, as the balloon gets bigger, we believe they
have less anxiety and less negative emotion about how big the balloon is
getting and the possibility of it bursting."
The
results have a variety of real-life implications, Way said.
For
example, acetaminophen is the recommended treatment by the CDC for initial
COVID-19 symptoms.
"Perhaps
someone with mild COVID-19 symptoms may not think it is as risky to leave their
house and meet with people if they're taking acetaminophen," Way said.
Even
everyday activities like driving presents people with constant decisions
involving risk perception and assessment that could be altered by use of the
painkiller.
"We
really need more research on the effects of acetaminophen and other
over-the-counter drugs on the choices and risks we take," he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment