Acetaminophen is no better than a placebo for lower back pain: study
Your back is killing you. So you pop a couple of Tylenol. Just what the doctor ordered, right? Well, a new Australian study published in The Lancet this week suggests that it may not be what physicians should be prescribing for lower back pain....
Your back is killing you. So you pop a couple of Tylenol. Just what the doctor ordered, right? Well, a new Australian study published in The Lancet this week suggests that it may not be what physicians should be prescribing for lower back pain.
Researchers looked at more than 1,500 people who had felt back pain for six weeks or less. A third took regular doses of acetaminophen (Tylenol), a third took the drug as needed, and a third were given a placebo. They found that acetaminophen -- which is also known as paracetamol -- did not reduce the intensity of the pain or recovery times.
Dr. Esther Williamson, a pain expert from Oxford University, tells As It Happens guest host Helen Mann, "The benefits that people had presumed [from acetaminophen] actually wasn't shown in this study."
Dr. Esther Williamson, a pain expert from Oxford University, tells As It Happens guest host Helen Mann, "The benefits that people had presumed [from acetaminophen] actually wasn't shown in this study."