Quantcast
ZME Science
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact
No Result
View All Result
ZME Science

No Result
View All Result
ZME Science
No Result
View All Result
Home Health & Medicine

Acetaminophen affects the ability to detect errors

Acetaminophen, commonly sold as Tylenol or Paracetamol may affect our ability to solve errors, a new study has found. The impairment is minor, but noticeable.

Mihai Andrei by Mihai Andrei
April 12, 2016
in Health & Medicine, News
Reading Time: 2 mins read
A A
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterSubmit to Reddit

Acetaminophen, commonly sold as Tylenol or Paracetamol may affect our ability to solve errors, a new study has found. The impairment is minor, but noticeable.

Acetaminophen is one of the most common drugs, usually taken for mild pains and fever. But recently, more and more studies are starting to point out the negative effects of the drug. The latest in the string of side effects was pointed out by Canadian researchers, who report that people taking the drug are less likely to observe errors.

Sorry to interrupt, but you should really...

...Join the ZME newsletter for amazing science news, features, and exclusive scoops. More than 40,000 subscribers can't be wrong.

   

ADVERTISEMENT

“It looks like acetaminophen makes it harder to recognize an error, which may have implications for cognitive control in daily life,” said Dan Randles, a researcher at the University of Toronto. “This is the first study to address this question, so we need more work and ideally with tasks more closely related to normal daily behavior.”

For the study, published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, they recuited 62 people for a double-blind, randomized study with half the participants receiving 1,000 milligrams of acetaminophen, the normal maximum dose, and the rest given a placebo. They were then hooked up to an electroencephalogram and given a target-detection task called Go or No Go, hitting a button when an “F” appeared on a screen but not hitting the button if an “E” appeared on the screen. Not only did the acetaminophen group hit the button more often when an “E” appeared, but they also missed more “F” screens, suggesting that the drugs has an effec that goes beyond just numbing the pain.

“An obvious question is if people aren’t detecting these errors, are they also making errors more often when taking acetaminophen,” Randles asks.

Acute overdoses of acetaminophen can cause liver damage and might even be fatal. The toxicity associated with Paracetamol and Tlenol is the foremost cause of acute liver failure in the Western world, and accounts for most drug overdoses in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.According to the FDA, in the United States there were “56,000 emergency room visits, 26,000 hospitalizations, and 458 deaths per year related to acetaminophen-associated overdoses during the 1990.

ADVERTISEMENT

Tags: acetaminophendrugparacetamoltylenol
ShareTweetShare
Mihai Andrei

Mihai Andrei

Andrei's background is in geophysics, and he's been fascinated by it ever since he was a child. Feeling that there is a gap between scientists and the general audience, he started ZME Science -- and the results are what you see today.

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.