because some do feel the pain of others.

For most of us the expression 'feeling someone else's pain' is simply a way of saying we sympathise with their sadness or discomfort.
But there are some who don't just have an emotional reaction to another's agony - they feel genuine physical pain as well, researchers have found.
The finding could explain why some people are more sympathetic to other people's misery.


Psychologist Dr Stuart Derbyshire made the discovery after inviting 123 university students to watch video clips and photographs of patients and sports stars in pain.
The videos included a footballer breaking his leg, a tennis player turning over his left ankle and a patient getting an injection in the hand. All the students said that, for at least one of the images or videos, they had an 'emotional reaction' - such as feeling sad, disgusted or fearful.

But a third also claimed to feel real pain in the same part of the body as the person they were watching. Some experienced tingling or aching, others felt a heavy or stabbing pain. For some the pain was fleeting - others complained that it lasted for several seconds.
A gruesome picture of an athlete running on a racetrack with a broken leg generated the most physical pain in the students, researchers reported in the medical journal Pain.

The scientists then asked ten of these 'hypersensitive' students to repeat the experiment while their brains were being scanned with fMRI - the functional magnetic resonance imaging used in hospitals.
The results were compared with the scans from ten students who said they felt nothing while looking at the upsetting images.
Scientists found that while viewing the painful pictures, both groups showed activity in the parts of the brain that deal with emotions. However, those who said they felt physical pain showed greater activity in the parts of the brain that handle pain - suggesting that their sensations were genuine.
'Our study provides convincing evidence that a significant minority of normal subjects can share not just the emotional component of an observed injury, but also the sensory component,' said Dr Derbyshire, of the University of Birmingham.
'We think this confirms that at least some people have an actual physical reaction when observing others being injured or expressing pain.'
He noted that those who reported feeling pain also tended to say that they avoided horror movies and disturbing images on the news 'so as to avoid being in pain'.
The finding could explain ' functional pain experience', where patients complain of aches and pains, despite having no obvious disease, he said.
Scientists are puzzled why some are able to feel others' pain - and some cannot.
It has been suggested that the ability evolved millions of years ago and that the ability to feel another's physical pain encouraged our prehistoric ancestors work more closely with each other.
Almost 8million Britons live with chronic pain, especially women, while a third of patients say doctors are unable to 'inadequately control' of their pain.
Back pain costs the economy at least five million working days each year, and is the cause of half a million claimants receiving long-term incapacity benefits.


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