Study: Popular pain relievers can make you less empathetic

COLUMBUS (KRON) — Tylenol might do more than just numb the pain, or get rid of a headache, according to a new study.

Researchers at the Ohio State University said it can also make people less sympathetic. They attribute the lack of empathy to the main ingredient–acetaminophen.

“These findings suggest other people’s pain doesn’t seem as big of a deal to you when you’ve taken acetaminophen,” said Dominik Mischkowski, who is co-author of the study and a former Ph.D. student at Ohio State, now at the National Institutes of Health.

Acetaminophen is used in more than 600 medications in the United States.

Researchers would like to do a larger study to get a better understanding the effect.

Here is a full link to the study: https://news.osu.edu/news/2016/05/10/empathy-reliever/