The Medications That Change Who We Are
by Zaria Gorvett
8th January 2020
BBC.com
Over the years, Golomb has collected reports from patients across the United States – tales of broken marriages, destroyed careers, and a surprising number of men who have come unnervingly close to murdering their wives. In almost every case, the symptoms began when they started taking statins then promptly returned to normal when they stopped; one man repeated this cycle five times before he realised what was going on. [Statins are the most unnecessarily-prescribed medication in the U.S., given that the market for them exploded after "normal" cholesterol was arbitrarily--and profitably-- redefined as below 200 instead of the previous "normal" of 300.]
It turns out ordinary medications can be just as potent [as psychedelics]. The list of potential culprits includes some of the most widely consumed drugs on the planet. From paracetamol (known as acetaminophen in the US) to antihistamines, statins, asthma medications and antidepressants, there’s emerging evidence that they can make us impulsive, angry, or restless, diminish our empathy for strangers, and even manipulate fundamental aspects of our personalities, such as how neurotic we are.
The world is in the midst of a crisis of over-medication, with the US alone buying up 49,000 tonnes of paracetamol every year – equivalent to about 298 paracetamol tablets per person – and the average American consuming $1,200 worth of prescription medications over the same period. And as the global population ages, our drug-lust is set to spiral even further out of control; in the UK, one in 10 people over the age of 65 already takes eight medications every week.
Golomb first suspected a connection between statins and personality changes nearly two decades ago, after a series of mysterious discoveries, such as that people with lower cholesterol levels are more likely to die violent deaths. There was even a potential mechanism: lowering the animals’ cholesterol seemed to affect their levels of serotonin, an important brain chemical thought to be involved in regulating mood and social behaviour in animals.
A study she conducted in Sweden, which involved comparing a database of the cholesterol levels of 250,000 people with local crime records. “Even adjusting for confounding factors, it was still the case that people with lower cholesterol at baseline were significantly more likely to be arrested for violent crimes.”
Mischkowski’s own research has uncovered a sinister side-effect of paracetamol. For a long time, scientists have known that the drug blunts physical pain by reducing activity in certain brain areas, such as the insular cortex, which plays an important role in our emotions. These areas are involved in our experience of social pain, too – and intriguingly, paracetamol can make us feel better after a rejection.
And recent research has revealed that this patch of cerebral real-estate is more crowded than anyone previously thought, because it turns out the brain’s pain centres also share their home with empathy. Mischkowski wondered whether painkillers might be making it harder to experience empathy. The results revealed that paracetamol significantly reduces our ability to feel positive empathy.
[Empathy has] many practical benefits, including more stable romantic relationships, better-adjusted children, and more successful careers – some scientists have even suggested that it’s responsible for the triumph of our species. In fact, a quick glance at its many benefits reveals that casually lowering a person’s ability to empathise is no trivial matter [especially given that lack of empathy is the chief characteristic of psychopaths].
The big surprise was that, though the antidepressants did make the participants feel less depressed, the reduction in neuroticism was much more powerful For the study, the team recruited adults who had moderate to severe depression. While becoming less neurotic might sound like an appealing side-effect, it’s not necessarily all good news. That’s because this aspect of our personalities is something of a double-edged sword; yes, it’s been associated with all kinds of unpleasant outcomes, such as an earlier death, but it’s also thought that anxious over-thinking might be helpful. For example, neurotic individuals tend to be more risk-averse, and in certain situations worrying can improve a person’s performance. When some people are on antidepressants, what can happen is that they begin not to care about things that people care about [i.e. they become psychopathic].
But Golomb’s most unsettling discovery isn’t so much the impact that ordinary drugs can have on who we are – it’s the lack of interest [in the medical community] in uncovering it.
