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If you haven't had a heart attack, step away from the aspirin bottle... If you are one of the 40 million Americans who take an aspirin every day, you may want to heed the latest warning from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
After many decades of promoting aspirin, the FDA now says that if you have not experienced a heart problem, you should not be taking a daily aspirin—even if you have a family history of heart disease. This represents a significant departure from FDA's prior position on aspirin for the prevention of heart attacks.
On its website, the FDA now says:1, 2
"FDA has concluded that the data do not support the use of aspirin as a preventive medication by people who have not had a heart attack, stroke or cardiovascular problems, a use that is called 'primary prevention.' In such people, the benefit has not been established but risks — such as dangerous bleeding into the brain or stomach — are still present."
Their announcement was prompted by Bayer's request to change its aspirin label to indicate it can help prevent heart attacks in healthy individuals. Aspirin generated $1.27 billion in sales for Bayer last year,3 and from Bayer's request, it appears they want everyone to be taking their drug.
But the FDA says "not so fast"—and rightly so. Evidence in support of using aspirin preventatively has gone from weak to weaker to nonexistent. This is why I've been advising against it for more than a decade. It looks as though aspirin, even "low-dose aspirin" (LDA), may do far more harm than good.
In fact, it is debatable whether or not aspirin has ANY protective benefits against cardiovascular disease, even if you have suffered a heart attack or stroke. Recent scientific studies have uncovered a number of serious side effects, suggesting that whatever aspirin may offer may be overshadowed by its risks, especially when safer natural alternatives exist.
As is true for nearly all medications, the longer we watch for side effects, the more we tend to find—even for drugs like aspirin that have been around for more than 100 years. Just because aspirin is an over-the-counter drug and has been around for more than a century does not mean that it's harmless.
Aspirin May Conceal a Cardiac Event in Progress
Roughly 800,000 Americans die from cardiovascular disease annually, which includes heart attacks and stroke. This is why heart health has been such a major focus, and why aspirin was hailed as a "wonder drug" by those who believed it was a safe and effective preventative. But that ship has sailed.
Nearly 10 years ago, Dr. John G. F. Cleland, a cardiologist from the University of Hull in the UK, wrote an excellent article published in the British Journal of Medicine4 casting doubt upon the efficacy of aspirin therapy for prevention of heart attacks.
Based on a series of meta-analyses from the Antithrombotic Trialists' Collaboration,5 which is an enormous body of research following more than 100,000 patients at high risk for cardiac events, Dr. Cleland concluded that aspirin therapy was not saving lives. Rather, aspirin seems to change the way vascular events present themselves.
The number of non-fatal events may be reduced, but the number of sudden deaths is actually increased, because what most physicians don't realize is that surprisingly aspirin can mask a cardiac event in progress.
Dr. Cleland also found that studies touting aspirin's benefits are seriously flawed and interpretation of those studies is biased. Since Cleland's original study, a deluge of scientific studies have further exposed aspirin's failure, which I have summarized in the next few sections.
Studies Show Aspirin Is a Dismal Failure at Preventing Heart Attacks
The following table lists, chronologically, a sampling of studies showing that taking aspirin may do more harm than good. Regardless of whether you're a man, woman, or diabetic, aspirin has failed miserably. This list of studies is not comprehensive. You will find much more information in the GreenMedInfo database, which lists more than 60 articles about aspirin's toxic effects.6
StudySignificant Cardiovascular Findings
American Heart Journal 2004 (WASH)Patients receiving aspirin treatment showed the worst cardiac outcomes, especially heart failure
New England Journal of Medicine 20057Ten-year study at Harvard involving nearly 40,000 women found no fewer heart attacks or cardiovascular deaths among women receiving aspirin therapy
British Medical Journal 20098Aspirin therapy for diabetics produced no benefit in preventing cardiovascular events
Pharmacoepidemiological Drug Safety 20099Swedish researchers studying individuals with diabetes found no clear benefit for aspirin, but did note it can increase the risk of serious bleeding
Journal of the American Medical Association 201010, 11Scottish study found that aspirin did not help prevent heart attacks or strokes in healthy, asymptomatic individuals with a high risk of heart disease
Journal of the American College of Cardiology 201012Patients taking aspirin showed a higher risk for recurrent heart attack and associated heart problems
Expert Opinions in Pharmacotherapy 201013British meta-analysis of 7374 diabetics concluded that aspirin does not lower heart attack risk
Aspirin Increases Your Risk of Bleeding
Not only has aspirin failed to reduce the prevalence of heart attacks and strokes, but the list of its adverse effects seems to grow greater the more that it is studied. Chief among these is gastrointestinal bleeding, as aspirin interferes with your platelets—the blood cells that allow your blood to clot. According to one article, long-term low-dose aspirin therapy may double your risk for a gastrointestinal bleed.14
Aspirin also increases your risk for a brain bleed, especially if you are older. One study found a high mortality rate for elderly individuals who had been taking aspirin prophylactically when they suffered a head trauma, resulting in deadly brain hemorrhage.15
Aspirin Destroys the Lining of Your Gastrointestinal Tract
Regular aspirin use also destroys the lining of your gastrointestinal tract, increasing your risk for duodenal ulcers, H. Pylori infection,16 Crohn's disease,17 diverticular disease, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and intestinal perforations. More than 10 percent of patients taking low-dose aspirin develop gastric ulcers. The damage to your duodenum—the highest part of your intestine into which your stomach contents pass—can result in duodenal ulcers, which are prone to bleeding. Even low-dose aspirin is proven to cause problems.
A Japanese study found a higher incidence of bleeding at the ulcer sites of patients with duodenal ulcers taking low-dose aspirin (LDA) therapy, versus those not taking LDA.18 An Australian study also showed that aspirin causes gastroduodenal damage even at the low doses used for cardiovascular protection (80mg).19 And Japanese researchers found that aspirin had caused "small bowel injuries" to 80 percent of study participants after only two weeks of aspirin therapy.20
Even MORE Bad News for Bayer
Each year, 15,000 people die and 100,000 people are hospitalized as the result of aspirin and other NSAIDs—and these are probably conservative estimates. But aspirin may be one of the oldest killer drugs! Strong historical evidence points to aspirin overdose as a major contributor to high death tolls during the 1918 influenza pandemic. Aspirin toxicity can result in hemorrhage and fluid buildup in your lungs, which can result in death. If you are interested in the evidence for this, please read Dr. Karen Starko's fascinating paper in Clinical Infectious Diseases.21
Lending even more weight to Starko's work, an animal study in 2010 suggests that treating the flu with antipyretics (such as aspirin) may increase your risk of death. This study involved animals, but the results were compelling enough for the researchers to make an "urgent call" for human studies.22 Aspirin also depletes your body of important nutrients, including vitamin C, vitamin E, folic acid, iron, potassium, sodium, and zinc,23 as well as impairing your melatonin production.24 And in addition to aspirin's growing list of bodily assaults, routine aspirin use has been associated with even broader health problems, such as:
Increased risk of one type of breast cancer in women (ER/PR-negative)25
Increased risk of kidney failure
Cataracts, macular degeneration, and blindness26
Hearing loss27 and tinnitus28
Erectile dysfunction: Aspirin and other NSAIDs have been linked to a 22 percent increase in your risk of erectile dysfunction (ED), according to Kaiser researchers who studied more than 80,000 men29
The Real Key to Protecting Your Heart Is Reducing Chronic Inflammation
Getting back to the subject of your heart, with all of these adverse effects, why risk taking aspirin when there are safer and more effective alternatives? About one in three deaths in the US are attributed to cardiovascular disease—but 25 percent of those are preventable.
The key is to address chronic inflammation, which can be accomplished by making specific lifestyle changes that encompass diet, exercise, sun exposure, and bare skin contact with the earth. In the remainder of this article, I will focus on heart-health strategies that work FAR better than aspirin. For additional information, please refer to our prior article about cardiovascular disease.
Topic Author
...side effects ..lethargy ..muscle cramps ..sleeping could be effected but I am under the impresion these are for those that dont change their lifstyle and then have to take 40 to 60 mg a day ...eat properly and exercise and a low dose under 20 mg = no sides ...for me any way
