Study finds (no kidding) if you stay healthy you’ll live longer

The Myth That Just Won’t Die

If Americans were healthier they would live longer and have fewer heart attacks.

You heard it here first!

Well, you heard it here first unless you happen to subscribe to the journal Circulation were you might have come across a study conducted by researchers from the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, and the American Diabetes Association.

Those three organizations are some seriously mainstream heavy hitters. And you just know they’re going to hand down some seriously mainstream advice on how to stay healthy.

Top dog

In this purely hypothetical study, researchers concluded that if the 150 million Americans aged 20 to 80 would quit smoking and lose weight, the number of yearly heart attacks would be reduced by more than 60 percent and we would live 1.3 years longer, on average.

As they say in the hallowed halls of mainstream medicine: “That’s a mighty big IF.”

Getting precise about how to live healthier, the study states: “Of the specific prevention activities, the greatest benefits to the US population come from…”

Can you guess what topped their list – the Number One prevention activity that would have the greatest benefit? Was it weight reduction in the obese? That made the list, but it didn’t top the list. How about: controlling pre-diabetes? Nope – again, it’s on the list, but not at the top.

Okay, I’ll cut the suspense. The number one prevention activity that researchers say might have the greatest benefit is: “Providing aspirin to high-risk individuals.”

Well of course! You didn’t think the AHA, ACS, and ADA would pass up a chance to sell some drugs, did you?

Behind in their reading

Will these mainstream guys never learn? To them, aspirin for the heart is like mother’s milk for babies. No questions asked.

But they’re the very ones that SHOULD be asking questions, based on some studies that have appeared in mainstream publications.

For instance, in a large Australian study that was reported in the British Medical Journal last year, researchers found that elderly subjects with no history of heart disease who used low-dose aspirin therapy reduced their risk of heart attack and ischemic stroke. At what cost? A significant number of subjects had a sharply increased risk of bleeding in the brain or the gastrointestinal tract.

And in a 2005 study that appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital recruited more than 39,000 healthy women over the age of 45 with no cardiovascular problems. For 10 years, half the group took 100 mg of aspirin every other day and half the group took a placebo. Results showed that aspirin provided no protection from heart attack, although those in the aspirin group had a slightly reduced risk of ischemic stroke.

The downside: Women in the aspirin group were found to have a 40 percent increased risk of gastrointestinal bleeding severe enough to require transfusions!

All non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs – which includes aspirin and ibuprofen – have been shown to contribute to GI conditions such as bleeding and ulcers, as well as kidney impairment and increased risk of hypertension in women.

Kind of makes you wonder if those serious medical mainstreamers are actually reading any of their seriously medical mainstream journals.

Source:
“The Impact of Prevention on Reducing the Burden of Cardiovascular Disease” Circulation, Published online 7/7/08, circ.ahajournals.org