Here's another excellent reason to avoid aspirin therapy

Little pill, big problems

I don’t like to throw statistics around. They tend to be pretty easy to dismiss — and to fake.

But this one stopped me in my tracks. One half of all Americans over the age of 65 take a daily aspirin to reduce risk of heart attack and stroke. That is 50%! And, about one-in-three middle aged Americans do the same.

That’s appalling. It means that the brainwashing has worked and millions of people are putting their health at risk every day in return for scant protection from cardiac events.

If you know anyone that thinks daily aspirin therapy is harmless (especially your doctor!), you need to make sure they see this.

But here’s the kicker: Also tell them they should NOT abruptly stop taking their aspirin. That might actually make matters worse.

Quite convincingly…

I recently told you about research results that appeared to be excellent news for diabetics. In fact, those results were exactly the opposite of excellent.

In that study, diabetic subjects with a history of heart attack or stroke were 23 percent less likely to have a second heart attack if they took 325 mg of aspirin daily.

Now, keep that dose in mind — 325 mg — while we look at a new study from St George’s University of London.

The UK researchers examined nine studies that compared regular aspirin use to placebo in more than 100,000 subjects who had never had a heart attack or a stroke.

The first part of the results will warm the hearts of medical mainstreamers: Those who regularly used aspirin reduced their risk of any type of cardio event by 10 percent, and reduced their risk of non-fatal heart attack by 20 percent.

But the additional results will give the hearts of those mainstreamers a sudden chill: Regular aspirin use boosted the risk of serious gastrointestinal bleeding 30 percent.

The lead researcher told the New York Times, “We have been able to show quite convincingly that in people without a previous heart attack or stroke, regular use of aspirin may be more harmful than it is beneficial.”

Now let’s go back to that diabetic study where subjects took 325 mg per day, and I think we can safely say that the much higher dose, consumed daily over a long period, is almost certain disaster.

The Times notes that the findings will likely add to the confusion about who should take a regular aspirin and who should not.

Well…no. The findings help SETTLE the confusion and move us closer to banishing the idea of aspirin as cardio therapy.

If there’s any confusion, it’s this: How do you safely pull back from aspirin therapy?

A few years ago I told you about a study that reviewed hundreds of cases of coronary episodes. Researchers found that severe angina and fatal heart attacks appear to be prompted in some patients by the sudden halt of regular aspirin intake.

Patients with a history of heart disease were at particularly high risk, and those are the very patients who are most likely to begin aspirin therapy in the first place.

If you’re taking daily low-dose aspirin, talk to your doctor about these studies before you wean yourself off this “wonder drug.”

Sources:
“Effect of Aspirin on Vascular and Nonvascular Outcomes” Archives of Internal Medicine, Published online ahead of print, 1/9/12, archinte.ama-assn.org

“Daily Aspirin Is Not for Everyone, Study Suggests” Tara Parker-Pope, New York Times, 1/16/12, well.blogs.nytimes.com

“Higher daily dose of aspirin could play key role in preventing heart attacks for those with diabetes” University of Alberta press release, 7/5/11, eurekalert.org