Posts tagged emotional distress
Articles and news from the latest research reports.
Anxious about life? Tylenol may do the trick
University of British Columbia researchers have found a new potential use for the over-the-counter pain drug Tylenol. Typically known to relieve physical pain, the study suggests the drug may also reduce the psychological effects of fear and anxiety over the human condition, or existential dread.
Published in the Association for Psychological Science journal Psychological Science, the study advances our understanding of how the human brain processes different kinds of pain.
“Pain exists in many forms, including the distress that people feel when exposed to thoughts of existential uncertainty and death,” says lead author Daniel Randles, UBC Dept. of Psychology. “Our study suggests these anxieties may be processed as ‘pain’ by the brain – but Tylenol seems to inhibit the signal telling the brain that something is wrong.”
The study builds on recent American research that found acetaminophen – the generic form of Tylenol – can successfully reduce the non-physical pain of being ostracized from friends. The UBC team sought to determine whether the drug had similar effects on other unpleasant experiences – in this case, existential dread.
In the study, participants took acetaminophen or a placebo while performing tasks designed to evoke this kind of anxiety – including writing about death or watching a surreal David Lynch video – and then assign fines to different types of crimes, including public rioting and prostitution.
Compared to a placebo group, the researchers found the people taking acetaminophen were significantly more lenient in judging the acts of the criminals and rioters – and better able to cope with troubling ideas. The results suggest that participants’ existential suffering was “treated” by the headache drug.
“That a drug used primarily to alleviate headaches may also numb people to the worry of thoughts of their deaths, or to the uneasiness of watching a surrealist film – is a surprising and very interesting finding,” says Randles, a PhD candidate who authored the study with Prof. Steve Heine and Nathan Santos.
While the findings suggest that acetaminophen can help to reduce anxiety, the researchers caution that further research – and clinical trials – must occur before acetaminophen should be considered a safe or effective treatment for anxiety.
(Source: publicaffairs.ubc.ca)
Fainting May Run in Families While Triggers May Not
New research suggests that fainting may be genetic and, in some families, only one gene may be responsible. However, a predisposition to certain triggers, such as emotional distress or the sight of blood, may not be inherited. The study is published in the April 16, 2013, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Fainting, also called vasovagal syncope, is a brief loss of consciousness when your body reacts to certain triggers. It affects at least one out of four people.
“Our study strengthens the evidence that fainting may be commonly genetic,” said study author Samuel F. Berkovic, MD, FRS, with the University of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia, and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. “Our hope is to uncover the mystery of this phenomenon so that we can recognize the risk or reduce the occurrence in people as fainting may be a safety issue.”
Researchers interviewed 44 families with a history of fainting and reviewed their medical records. Of those, six families had a large number of affected people, suggesting that a single gene was running through the family. The first family consisted of 30 affected people over three generations with an average fainting onset of eight to nine years. The other families were made up of four to 14 affected family members. Affected family members reported typical triggers, such as the sight of blood, injury, medical procedures, prolonged standing, pain and frightening thoughts. However, the triggers varied greatly within the families.
Genotyping of the largest family showed significant linkage to a specific region on chromosome 15, known as 15q26. Linkage to this region was excluded in two medium-sized families but not in the two smaller families.
(Image: Fotolia)