Painkiller acetaminophen, sold as Tylenol and Panadol, does not help in treating lower back pain,and is no better than a placebo, according to a latest study.

A study, which has been published in the journal Lancet, stated that acetaminophen, the drug found in Tylenol and Panadol, is no better than a placebo, when it may come to relieving lower back pain or reducing pain levels.

The study conducted at several clinics in Sydney tracked 1,652 individuals suffering from lower back pain for 4 weeks.

The individuals were given either acetaminophen or a placebo. The researchers discovered that there was almost no difference in the number of days needed to recover between the two groups, the average time to recovery was seventeen days in the regular paracetamol group, seventeen days in the as-needed paracetamol group, and sixteen days in the placebo group.

According to a 2011 report from the Institute of Medicine, chronic back pain affects nearly 100 million adults and cost the United States 635 billion dollars every year in medical treatment along with lost productivity.

On the other hand, a separate report in 2011 from Decision Resources, one of the world's top research and advisory firms for pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, discovered that therapies and treatments to treat chronic back pain and arthritis will be the most profitable segments of the 20 billion dollar chronic pain drug market through 2020 in the Germany, United States, France, Spain, Japan and Italy.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) earlier this year recommended that health care professionals stop distributing and prescribing products that have more than 325 milligrams of acetaminophen per tablet, debating that there was no data demonstrating that it provides extra benefit that outweighs the additional risks for livery injury.