4 ms·

I'm not sure I understand: hundred millions of people feeling (even slight) relief from their pain are victims of some placebo effect/marketing hack? It doesn't

I'm not sure I understand: hundred millions of people feeling (even slight) relief from their pain are victims of some placebo effect/marketing hack? It doesn't relieve pain at all and I've been dreaming it my whole life? I was also talking about lowering fever, I suppose it doesn't work for that either?

robbedpeter 5y ago
Yeah. Lots of studies are readily available. A good starting point is Cochrane reviews of acetaminophen for pain - acute, chronic, muscular, neurological, joint, spinal, and otherwise. There's a similar amount of material showing little to no effect on reducing fever, or providing any anti inflammatory effects at all. It's fairly conclusive evidence, please take the time to review.
- tialaramex 5y ago
  Reading a Cochrane review is worthwhile. Whether cherry picking things you wanted to be assured of out of one is a good idea... well, maybe they'll do a Cochrane review eh? For example, they've got a study on Paracetamol in treatment of the Common Cold. You might be surprised to see the headline outcome is paracetamol doesn't work. But wait, in what sense exactly doesn't it work? Well, the key observation is that people taking paracetamol still sneeze. Sure, lots of them say they feel better, but if we just count the sneezes we can see it didn't help at all... Well, I'm guessing most readers have had a nasty cold at some point, and I leave it to you to decide whether "My headache felt better but I was still sneezing" means the cheap medicine was ineffective and you shouldn't have bothered. Edited to add: Or, say, what one on post-surgical pain relief has to say about paracetamol: "A single dose of paracetamol provides effective analgesia for about half of patients with acute postoperative pain, for a period of about four hours" So that's nice.

4 ms·

I'm not sure I understand: hundred millions of people feeling (even slight) relief from their pain are victims of some placebo effect/marketing hack? It doesn't

by touisteur 5y ago

robbedpeter 5y ago
Yeah. Lots of studies are readily available. A good starting point is Cochrane reviews of acetaminophen for pain - acute, chronic, muscular, neurological, joint, spinal, and otherwise. There's a similar amount of material showing little to no effect on reducing fever, or providing any anti inflammatory effects at all. It's fairly conclusive evidence, please take the time to review.
- tialaramex 5y ago
  Reading a Cochrane review is worthwhile. Whether cherry picking things you wanted to be assured of out of one is a good idea... well, maybe they'll do a Cochrane review eh? For example, they've got a study on Paracetamol in treatment of the Common Cold. You might be surprised to see the headline outcome is paracetamol doesn't work. But wait, in what sense exactly doesn't it work? Well, the key observation is that people taking paracetamol still sneeze. Sure, lots of them say they feel better, but if we just count the sneezes we can see it didn't help at all... Well, I'm guessing most readers have had a nasty cold at some point, and I leave it to you to decide whether "My headache felt better but I was still sneezing" means the cheap medicine was ineffective and you shouldn't have bothered. Edited to add: Or, say, what one on post-surgical pain relief has to say about paracetamol: "A single dose of paracetamol provides effective analgesia for about half of patients with acute postoperative pain, for a period of about four hours" So that's nice.