Acetaminophen isn't Better than Placebo for Lower Back Pain: Study

Acetaminophen is no better than placebo for lower back pain, a new study has found. The drug is used in popular painkillers such as Tylenol.

The study, conducted by the University of Sydney in Australia, shows that analgesic such as acetaminophen or paracetamol don't really help people recover from lower back pain or improve their quality of life.

"Simple analgesics such as paracetamol might not be of primary importance in the management of acute lower back pain," said lead author Dr Christopher Williams from the George Institute for Global Health at the University of Sydney in Australia. "The results suggest we need to reconsider the universal recommendation to provide paracetamol as a first-line treatment for low-back pain, although understanding why paracetamol works for other pain states but not low-back pain would help direct future treatments."

For the study, researchers used data from Paracetamol for Low-Back Pain Study (PACE). Around1652 individuals with acute low-back pain were randomly given acetaminophen or placebo.

Researchers found that acetaminophen group and placebo group recovered from the back pain at almost the same time - the median recovery time was 17 days in acetaminophen group while it was 16 days in people who got dummy pills.

Also, people on acetaminophen didn't report any improvement in short-term pain levels, disability or sleep.

"In view of the quick timeframe in which participants in our trial improved compared with other cohorts, it would be interesting to see whether advice and reassurance (as provided in our trial) might be a more effective than pharmacological strategies for acute episodes of low-back pain," Williams said in a news release.

The study is published in the journal The Lancet.          

Bart Koes and Wendy Enthoven from Erasmus MC, University Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands said in a linked comment that more research is needed before dismissing acetaminophen as the primary treatment option for lower back pain.

According to Medline Plus, acetaminophen in large doses can lead to liver failure or even death.